c«\ 


AN  ADVENTURE 
IN  ALASKA 


By  Bruce  Gotten 


Cbe  Libtatp 

of  llje 

([|niDer0itp  of  H^ortl)  Carolina 


Collection  of  i15ott5  Catoliniana 

from  tl)e  Eibratj?  of 

Bruce  Cott^VL 


CB 

C84fcc 


/. 


y^i^^j^M^  -o^*/^^**.-^ 


^^/d^^ 


^^AT^-'-r^^ 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

DURING  THE  GOLD  EXCITEMENT 

OF 
1897-1898 


(i4  PERSONAL  EXPERIENCE) 


By 

Bruce  Gotten. 


BALTIMORE. 

1922. 


The  San  Printing  Office 
Baltimore. 


Copyright,  1922. 


i'Jlt  nt.  ko£a.n 


Slietch  of 

•YaKut^ 

aTidjy/iciruty 

•^gfe  (^ /flies 


Cylburn 
Baltimore  -  Maryland. 

March  14,  1922. 
Col.  and  Mrs.  Robert  R.  Gotten, 
Cottendnle,  N.  C. 

My  dear  Father  and  Mother : — 

You  have  both  several  times  expressed  to  me  a  wish 
that  I  would,  sometime,  write  up  for  you  some  of  my 
experiences  which  you  think  in  some  cases  have  been 
unusual. 

You  have  especially  desired  that  I  should  tell  of  three 
particular  events — my  trip  to  Alasks  in  1897,  my  experi- 
ences in  China  during  the  Boxer  War  of  1900,  and  my 
two  years  in  Luzon  during  the  Tagalog  Insurrection, 
1901-1902. 

As  my  trip  to  Alaska  was  the  first  of  these  occurrences, 
naturally  it  should  be  first  related,  leaving  the  other  two 
to  follow  when  time  and  circumstances  permit. 

Recently  I  found  a  manuscript  and  some  extensive 
notes  of  this  Alaska  trip,  made  immediately  upon  my 
return  and  finished  later  while  I  was  stationed  at  Fort 
Flagler  in  1904.  These  I  have  gone  over  and  put  together 
in  this  little  book. 

It  is  written  in  a  conversational  way,  rather  in  the 
American  language  than  the  English,  I  should  say,  and 
of  course,  makes  no  pretence  to  any  literary  merit. 

Whatever  it  is,  it  is  a  true  and  intimate  relation,  and 
I  take  great  pleasure  in  presenting  it  to  you,  for  your 
amusement  and  entertainment,  and  for  the  entertainment 
of  such  of  our  friends  as  may  be  interested. 

Your  devoted  son. 


/J^OiAX.<^^\0  I 


0^  A/^^^/C^-^^^C?^:*^^^^-^-^. 

(A 


TO  MY  WIFE,  WHO,  AFTER  ALL,  WAS 
HERSELF  THE  LITTLE  NUGGET  AND 
GREAT  POSSESSION  THAT  THIS 
AND  MY  OTHER  EFFORTS  WERE 
LEADING   TO. 


CONTENTS. 

Pages 
Chapter       I — From  Cottendale  to  Seattle i-  15 

Chapter      II — The  Organization  of  the  Party.  .  .  16-  26 

Chapter    III — From  Seattle  to  Sitka 27-  39 

Chapter     IV — Sitka  and   Yakutat 40-  54 

Chapter      V — In  the  Woods 55-  71 

Chapter    VI — The   Retreat 72-  92 

Chapter  VII — Back  to  Seattle 93-107 


CHAPTER  I. 

From  Cottendale  to  Seattle. 

In  May,  1897,  the  Alaska  Commercial  Company's 
steamship  Portland  arrived  at  Seattle  from  St.  Michael's, 
Alaska,  and,  proceeding  to  her  dock,  unloaded,  among 
other  things  from  her  cargo,  one  ton  of  gold  nuggets. 

This  remarkable  consignment  belonged  to  some  half 
dozen  individuals  who  reported  the  discovery  of  a  won- 
derfully rich,  new  placer  country  known  as  the  Klondike. 
Such  a  cargo  from  a  hitherto  unknown  land  would  at  any 
time  have  caused  a  tremendous  excitement.  There  were, 
however,  some  additional  reasons  and  temporary  condi- 
tions which  greatly  increased  the  excitement  and  interest 
that  followed. 

In  the  first  place,  all  the  great  commercial  and  real 
estate  interest  in  the  Northwest  were  at  that  time  suffer- 
ing very  severe  depression,  and  this  discovery,  with  all 
its  accompanying  glamor,  was  immediately  heralded  and 
attractively  advertised  with  the  hope  that  in  this  discov- 
ery impending  ruin  would  be  stayed. 

In  the  second  place,  there  was  universal  business  de- 
pression throughout  the  country,  especially  in  the  agri- 
cultural States,  so  that  the  discovery  was  announced  at 
a  time  when  public  attention  was  particularly  receptive 
and  many  thousands  were  either  dissatisfied  with  or  en- 
tirely out  of  their  usual  occupations. 

The  excitement  and  rush  that  followed  was  really  one 
of  the  greatest  in  the  history  of  the  world,  though  the 
Spanish-American  War,   following  as  it  did  in  a   few 


AN   ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

months,  diverted  public  interest,  and  the  Klondike  rush 
will  not  be  so  well  remembered  in  history  as  the  days  of 
'49  in  California  or  the  later  excitement  in  Australia. 
Some  idea  of  the  magnitude  of  the  movement  can  be 
gathered,  however,  from  the  statement  that  25,000 
farmers  in  Iowa  alone  quitted  the  plow  shaft  and  betook 
themselves  in  search  of  the  bag  of  gold  that  in  this  case 
hung  at  the  end  of  the  aurora  borealis. 

Almost  as  many  went  from  several  other  central  States, 
and  altogether  it  is  conservative  to  estimate  that  350,000 
people  left  their  homes  between  the  months  of  June  and 
December  and  turned  their  faces  to  the  midnight  sun. 
These  people,  almost  without  exception,  had  no  knowl- 
edge whatever  of  mining,  or  conception  of  the  conditions 
they  would  have  to  encounter.  A  surprisingly  large  per- 
centage were  farmers,  who  had  sold  or  mortgaged  their 
farms  for  the  purpose  of  undertaking  this  adventure,  and 
this  class  were  particularly  unfortunate  and  unsuccessful, 
for  they  had  left  real  homes  behind,  had  no  understanding 
whatever  of  what  they  were  trying  to  do  and  are  as  a  class 
most  difficult  to  adjust  to  radical  changes.  Thousands 
got  no  further  than  San  Francisco,  Seattle  or  Portland, 
where  they  became  stranded  through  different  causes, 
very  many  through  the  operations  of  confidence  men. 
Other  thousands  got  as  far  as  Juneau,  Diea  or  Skagway. 
Very  many  were  turned  back  at  the  Canadian  custom 
house  because  they  did  not  possess  the  requisite  amount 
of  provisions  to  go  on  to  the  interior. 

These  people  would  then  offer  their  supplies  and  out- 
fits for  sale,  so  that  for  some  time  all  supplies  and  articles 
of  equipment  could  be  bought  on  the  trail  below  and  above 


FROM  COTTENDALE  TO  SEATTLE 

Lake  Bennette  for  a  small  fraction  of  their  cost  in  Seat- 
tle. A  new  town — Skagway — was  established  at  the  foot 
of  the  White  Pass,  and  in  a  few  months  had  a  population 
of  25,000. 

There  were  still  other  thousands  who  scattered  them- 
selves in  all  the  bays  and  inlets  on  the  coast,  particu- 
larly in  Prince  William's  Sound,  Cook's  Inlet,  Bristol' 
Bay,  Norton  and  Kotzebue  Sounds.  It  is  curious  to 
note  that  some  of  these  places  are  fully  a  thousand  miles 
from  the  Klondike.  Think  of  a  man  stampeding  to  Texas 
or  Mexico  upon  the  announcement  of  a  gold  strike  at 
Cripple  Creek!  Yet  that  is,  in  distance  and  effect,  ex- 
actly what  many  hundreds  did.  I  remember  distinctly 
that  in  Seattle  in  those  early  days  the  names  Klondike  and 
Alaska  were  synonymous ;  they  meant  one  and  the  same 
thing  to  the  would-be  gold  hunter,  and  he  entirely  failed 
to  note  that  the  Klondike  was  not  even  in  Alaska  at  all, 
and  that  Alaska  itself  is  a  country  of  huge  proportions, 
being  three  times  the  size  of  France  and  greatly  exceeding 
in  area  all  the  thirteen  original  States  combined. 

A  person  remarking  to  a  friend  in  Seattle  today  that 
he  is  going  to  Alaska  would  probably  be  asked  "outside 
or  in,"  by  which  would  be  meant  "are  you  going  to  the 
interior  or  will  you  remain  on  the  coast?"  Alaska  "in- 
side" and  Alaska  "outside"  are  indeed  two  very  different 
countries,  as  different  as  North  Carolina  and  Newfound- 
land, and  as  far  apart  in  places. 

There  were  no  such  terms  in  the  days  of  the  rush,  for 
no  one  knew  anything  at  all  about  Alaska,  either  "inside" 
or  "out,"  even  the  government  maps  being  merely  out- 
lines of  the  coast  and  entirely  inaccurate. 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

This  indifference  or  ignorance  of  the  geography  of  the 
great  Northwest  is  still  very  prevalent,  and  the  story  goes 
that  one  of  our  Postmaster-Generals  in  recent  years 
caused  a  letter  to  be  written  to  the  Postmaster  at  Dawson 
City,  inquiring  why  certain  reports  had  not  been  ren- 
dered as  required  by  Department  regulations.  The  Post- 
master replied  that  the  regulation  in  question  had  indeed 
been  received,  but  since  his  office  was  fully  one  hundred 
miles  within  British  territory,  he  had  thought  it  more 
advisable  to  make  his  reports  to  Ottawa. 

It  is  difficult  to  explain  how  I  came  to  be  attracted  to 
and  finally  drawn  into  this  motley  mass  that  was  surging 
toward  the  north.  There  are  periods,  I  presume,  in  every 
person's  life  when  they  are  possessed  by  some  mysterious 
force  that  compels  them  to  some  certain  action,  though 
that  action  may  not  be  well  reasoned  and  is  often  the 
opposite  of  what  we  would  ordinarily  expect  that  par- 
ticular person  to  do.  Certainly  in  my  own  life  I  have  had 
several  such  experiences  when  I  have  determined  upon 
courses  apparently  not  based  upon  good  reasoning,  but 
have  been  compelled  to  them  notwithstanding. 

This  is  the  force,  I  presume,  that  some  criminologists 
claim  is  responsible  for  most  of  our  criminals.  However 
that  may  be,  in  my  case  at  least,  it  has  never  taken  that 
form,  but  has  served  rather  as  stepping-stones,  so  to  speak, 
to  my  present  high  state  of  contentment  and  happiness. 

When  the  riches  of  the  Klondike  were  first  heralded 
to  the  world,  I  was  at  Cottendale,  my  father's  plantation 
home  in  North  Carolina.  This  home  was  as  pleasant  and 
as  happy,  I  presume,  as  could  be  found.    We  were  a  close 


FROM  COTTENDALE  TO  SEATTLE 

and  devoted  family,  not  rich,  but  possessing  every  essen- 
tial of  life  and  happiness.  Our  community,  though  rural, 
was  wholesome  and  conservative.  Some  sleepy  remnants 
of  ante-bellum  days  still  lingered  on  the  countryside; 
many  old  slaves  were  in  a  way  companions  of  my  boy- 
hood days  and  constant  reminders  of  the  vanished  pomps 
of  yesterday.  Older  people  sometimes  spoke  of  Yankee 
raids  and  Reconstruction,  but  these  things  had  been  set- 
tled, I  supposed,  though  it  was  some  years  before  I  under- 
stood how  father  had  lost  that  war,  so  big  and  strong  and 
right  he  seemed  to  me.  In  short,  my  surroundings  had 
always  been  comfortable  and  sweet,  and  there  was  noth- 
ing further  desired,  perhaps,  unless  it  was  opportunity 
for  some  more  active  future  than  anything  here  afforded. 

Anyway,  it  is  certain  that  I  was  deeply  restive  at  that 
time.  I  was  just  of  age,  and  the  first  great  change  had 
to  take  place  in  my  affairs.  Most  fortunately,  my  father 
and  mother  seemed,  in  some  mysterious  way,  to  know 
this,  without  understanding  it,  perhaps,  any  more  than  I 
did.  They  knew  then  that  it  takes  a  boy  a  long  time  to 
become  a  man,  and  they  knew  also  many  other  things 
obscure  to  me  for  some  years  yet.  This  was  indeed  for- 
tunate, for  a  crisis  was  at  hand  within  me.  They  seemed 
to  know  this,  too,  and  certainly  they  knew  how  to  meet  it. 

I  became  completely  obsessed  with  the  idea  of  going  to 
the  Klondike,  though,  so  far  as  I  was  able  to  learn,  no 
single  other  person  in  that  entire  country  was  in  any  way 
impressed  as  I  was.  All  seemed  to  regard  my  intention 
as  a  singular  idea  and  somewhat  dangerous  lark,  which 
in  reality  of  course  it  was.  The  difficulty  of  properly 
financing  myself  upon  such  an  undertaking  was  indeed 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

real,  and  I  offered  to  organize  myself  into  a  kind  of 
stock  company  and  permit  a  few  friends  to  take  stock  in 
the  adventure.  This  flotation,  however,  was  not  a  suc- 
cess, and  I  started  with  a  very  small  capital  indeed,  though 
unincumbered  by  any  fear  of  stockholders'  meetings  or 
crooked  manipulation  of  myself  while  away. 

I  left  about  the  first  of  October  for  Seattle.  My  ulti- 
mate destination  was  the  Klondike,  which  I  knew  was 
somewhere  in  the  vicinity  of  Alaska.  I  had  never  seen 
a  gold  mine,  or  a  mine  of  any  description  in  my  life,  not 
even  a  miner;  in  fact,  gold  dust  and  brass  filings  all 
looked  alike  to  me. 

The  sum  total  of  my  knowledge  of  life  was  indeed 
small  and  far  too  provincial  to  be  of  any  service  in  an 
undertaking  of  this  nature.  And  let  me  say  here  that  it 
was  my  rearing,  environs  and  background  that  were  both 
my  weakness  and  strength  at  that  time.  They  had  in  no 
way  prepared  me  for  the  sort  of  world  that  I  was  about 
to  meet,  yet  in  this  same  process  they  had  laid  a  foun- 
dation of  something  that  saved  me  absolutely  in  the  end. 
The  first  I  was  painfully  conscious  of  early  in  this  strug- 
gle; the  second  I  was  not  conscious  of  until  some  years 
afterwards.  It  is  well  to  remember  this  in  connection 
with  some  positions  in  which  I  am  found  later  on  in  this 
paper. 

I  went  west  by  way  of  Nashville,  Tenn.,  where  I  stopped 
for  a  day  or  two  and  visited  a  Centennial  then  going  on. 
I  found  here  in  my  hotel  a  young  lady  who  had  often 
visited  my  sister  at  Cottendale.  She  was  the  last  of  the 
old  crowd  that  I  saw  for  eight  years  to  come,  and  my 
heart  was  sad  and  very,  very  full  when  I  said  good-bye. 


FROM  COTTENDALE  TO  SEATTLE 

I  spent  a  night  in  St.  Louis,  part  of  a  day  at  Colorado 
Springs,  and,  passing  over  the  Rockies,  skirted  the  shores 
of  the  great  Salt  Lake.  I  was  fully  mindful  of  the  great- 
ness of  the  trip,  the  first  that  I  had  ever  taken ;  was  aston- 
ished at  the  plains  and  amazed  at  the  great  Rocky  Moun- 
tains. 

I  met  and  conversed  with  many  curious  people,  and 
had  traveled  from  St.  Louis  in  an  emigrant  car.  These 
cars,  I  believe,  are  not  used  in  the  West  now ;  at  least  I 
have  not  seen  one  for  many  years.  They  were  provided 
with  cooking  stoves  in  one  end  whereon  passengers  could 
prepare  their  food,  and  the  chairs  were  great  tilting 
things,  much  like  barber  chairs,  which  when  tilted  served 
as  beds  by  night. 

From  Ogden  I  went  by  way  of  the  Oregon  Short  Line 
through  Portland  and  on  to  Seattle,  having  made  the 
entire  trip  for  about  $70. 

At  some  place  in  Missouri  two  young  men,  brothers, 
boarded  my  train.  They  were  going  to  Seattle,  and  from 
there  to  Whatcom,  where  an  uncle  lived.  They  were 
about  my  age,  and  were  mechanics.  They  were  respecta- 
ble young  fellows,  and  we  made  the  trip  together.  In 
some  way  they  had  heard  of  the  Globe  Hotel  in  Seattle, 
so  we  decided  to  go  there.  This  proved  quite  fortunate, 
for  the  Globe  was  just  the  place  we  should  have  been.  It 
proved  to  be  a  rather  large  and  roomy  place  on  First 
Avenue.  It  was  not  by  any  means  a  fashionable  hotel, 
but  it  was  clean  and  well  run  for  what  it  was,  and  was 
conducted  by  a  German  (Krous)  and  his  wife,  who  were 
so  kind  to  me  and  took  such  an  interest  in  me  that  I  have 
a  regard  for  them  to  this  day,  Kaiser  and  Crown  Prince 
notwithstanding. 

7 


AN   ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

Living  in  Seattle  was  amazingly  cheap  in  those  days. 
I  got  a  good  room  here  for  $2.50  per  week,  and  in  many 
places  a  good  meal  could  be  had  for  50  cents. 

This  seemed  strange  to  me,  seeing  that  the  town  was 
crowded  and  packed  with  people,  but  Seattle  then  knew 
something  that  I  did  not  know  for  some  time  to  come. 
That  was  that  this  crowd,  in  the  venacular  of  the  street, 
was  "dead  broke."  Nine-tenths  of  these  people  who  were 
incessantly  talking  of  their  millions  would  come  around 
quietly  and  borrow  a  "two-bit"  piece. 

I  found  Seattle  a  seething  mass  of  excited  humanity. 
Everybody  was  either  already  a  millionaire  or  expected 
to  be  one  right  away.  As  for  myself,  I  do  not  recall  at 
this  writing  exactly  how  much  I  considered  myself  worth 
at  that  time;  however,  I  know  I  felt  very  comfortable 
and  well  off  so  far  as  my  future  financial  condition  was 
concerned. 

It  is  impossible  for  one  who  has  never  participated  in 
a  rush  of  this  kind  to  understand  how  completely  the 
excitement  can  possess  you.  It  amounts  to  a  frenzy;  it  is 
epidemic  and  sweeps  over  a  community  like  the  measles. 
It  respects  neither  age,  experience  or  wisdom,  but  is  a 
form  of  reciprocal  insanity  which  completely  upsets  the 
throne  of  reason,  and  you  follow  at  the  heels  of  the 
jackass  of  folly  as  complacently  as  if  you  had  always  be- 
longed there. 

There  were  here  young  girls  of  good  raising  from  the 
East,  old  women  in  bloomers,  ministers  of  the  Gospel, 
gamblers,  criminals  and  gentlemen  adventurers  of  every 
nationality.     The  streets  were  crowded  night  and  day, 


FROM  COTTENDALE  TO  SEATTLE 

and  a  multitude  almost  foug-ht  for  transportation  on  the 
docks  and  at  the  ticket  offices. 

Every  conceivable  form  of  floating  craft  had  been  im- 
pressed for  this  service,  and  some  indeed  that  had  been 
condemned  and  idle  for  years.  Once  I  saw  a  man  on  the 
dock  push  his  cane  far  up  into  the  rotten  side  of  a  ship 
that  was  about  to  sail.  This  ship  sailed  with  more  than 
a  hundred  aboard,  and  was  never  heard  of  again.  A 
number  of  other  incidents  of  this  kind  could  be  cited. 

Very  many  novel  and  absurd  devices  for  packing  and 
traveling,  chemicals  that  would  keep  you  warm  in  winter 
and  free  from  mosquitoes  in  summer,  were  sold  in  large 
quantities  by  street  peddlers  and  afterwards  scattered  on 
all  the  trails  of  the  north. 

And  then  there  was,  too,  always  on  hand  the  man  who 
had  been  all  over  that  country  before,  and  who,  for  the 
price  of  a  drink,  was  anxious  to  take  you  aside  and  give 
you  valuable  and  very  confidential  information.  Clairvoy- 
ants and  other  classes  of  future  readers  were  doing  a 
thriving  business.  The  town  was  simply  teeming  with 
schemers  and  confidence  men  of  every  description  and 
degree  of  crookedness  and  dissipation. 

Dogs  were  in  great  demand,  and  I  remember  seeing  a 
carload  brought  in  from  the  East,  and  they  were  of  every 
known  species,  yet  undoubtedly  disposed  of  at  good  profit. 

All  this  made  life  very  curious  in  Seattle  in  those  days. 
Most  of  this  crowd  were  very  rough  and  a  bankrupt  lot, 
who  had  in  some  way  got  themselves  thus  far  and  were 
now,  like  myself,  hoping  by  hook  or  crook  to  find  some 
means  to  continue  on.  Many  of  them  lived  in  a  very  pre- 
carious and  uncertain  way,  mostly  in  saloons  and  gam- 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

bling  dens  that  were  very  plentiful  and  never  closed  night 
or  day,  Sundays  included. 

Seattle  was  what  you  call  a  wide-open  town,  which 
means  that  it  had  been  made  safe  for  every  conceivable 
form  of  crookedness,  vice  and  crime.  These  conditions, 
in  some  respects,  were  indeed  indescribable. 

Such  an  assemblage  under  such  conditions  will  prob- 
ably never  occur  again,  and  the  opportunity  for  the  study 
of  crowd  psychology  was  marvelous.  However,  I  was 
too  young  and  inexperienced  at  the  time  to  be  conscious  of 
this  side  of  the  picture,  and  too  absorbed  myself  in  being  a 
part  of  it. 

I  had  letters  to  a  number  of  well-known  people  in 
Seattle,  but  as  these  were  social,  I  decided  not  to  present 
myself,  since  my  abode  and  most  of  my  associates  were 
of  a  kind  calculated  to  embarrass,  I  thought,  rather  than 
please  any  people  I  had  access  to  in  this  way. 

Nevertheless,  I  met  a  few  respectable  people,  among 
them  a  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Francisco,  who  were  on  their  honey- 
moon. She  was  the  daughter  of  an  Episcopal  clergy- 
man, and  through  her  I  met  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Charles  Mc- 
Allester  and  their  charming  young  daughter,  Grace.  These 
people  I  afterwards  got  to  know  well,  and  they  have  al- 
ways been  my  devoted  friends.  Grace  was  indeed  lovely, 
and  would  have  been  an  ideal  heroine  for  this  story.  But 
this  is  the  tale  of  a  failure,  and  in  these  heroines  do  not 
enter.  She  is  a  married  woman  now  and  the  mother  of 
several  grown  children,  I  believe. 

Another  person  that  I  saw  much  of  at  that  time  was 
old  Mr.  Wikeoflf,  one  of  those  sweet  old  derelicts  that 
you  often  meet  in  life,  just  drifting  around  with  the  cur- 


io 


FROM  COTTENDALE  TO  SEATTLE 

rent,  living-  no  one  knows  how,  but  always  with  the  boys 
and  hopeful  still.  His  faith  in  me  never  wavered,  and  I 
wrote  him  often  for  years,  until  one  day  no  answer  came. 

Quite  by  accident  I  met  Mr.  Gilbert  Kidder  of  Wil- 
mington, North  Carolina.  Mr.  Kidder  was  much  older 
than  I  was  and  a  gentleman  of  refined  taste  and  ideas.  He 
was  shocked  to  find  me  living  at  the  Globe  Hotel,  and 
more  shocked  still  when  I  told  him  that  I  was  going 
north  with  some  of  that  yellow,  smelly  mob  that  seethed 
around  us. 

He  endeavored  to  dissuade  me,  and  even  threatened  to 
telegraph  my  mother,  but  finding  me  determined  he  be- 
came quite  interested  and  did  everything  he  could  for  my 
pleasure,  taking  me  to  see  people  in  the  evening,  among 
them  many  that  I  have  known  well  since. 

It  is  a  long  way  along  the  social  scale  from  Mr.  Kidder 
to  Jesse  Lang,  the  next  character  I  must  introduce  here. 
Mr.  Kidder  and  Jesse  Lang  would  have  mutually  re- 
pelled each  other  on  sight.  They  were  of  different  clay, 
yet  both  my  friends. 

Very  shortly  after  my  arrival  in  Seattle  I  met,  or  rather 
ran  into,  as  we  did  in  those  days,  Jesse  Lang.  He  was 
at  my  hotel.  Jesse  was  a  Tar  Heel  from  Buncombe 
County.  That  was  enough  to  make  us  close  friends  un- 
der the  circumstances.  Otherwise  Jess  was  a  powerful 
fellow,  of  plain  stock,  about  36  years  of  age,  and  a  bar- 
tender by  trade.  With  him  was  a  Pole  named  Romeo, 
which  I  assume  to  be  Romesesky  Americanized.  Romeo 
was  about  55  years  of  age.  He  told  me  that  his  people 
were  of  splendid  class  in  Poland,  but  that  his  entire  fam- 
ily, father,  mother,  sisters  and  brothers,  along  with  their 


II 


AN   ADVENTURE  IN   ALASKA 

village,  had  been  exiled  to  Siberia  back  in  the  sixties, 
and  that  he  had  never  heard  a  word  from  any  of  them 
since.  He  himself  had  escaped  this  fate  by  being  at 
school  in  France  at  the  time.  He  had  come  to  America 
as  a  young  man,  had  served  five  years  in  the  army  and 
had  for  many  years  now  been  a  bartender  in  Ashville, 
North  Carolina. 

These  two  men  had  been  attracted  to  Seattle  exactly 
as  I  had,  and,  like  myself,  were  now  looking  for  some 
opportunity  to  go  on  to  the  magnetic  North.  Naturally 
we  were  drawn  together  under  these  circumstances,  and  a 
kind  of  "triple  entente"  sprang  up  between  us  which 
seemed  very  excellent  to  me,  especially  whenever  I  looked 
at  Jesse's  great  back,  his  powerful  arms  and  his  225 
pounds  of  solid  weight.  Such  an  ally,  I  thought,  might 
be  very  good,  and  so  it  was. 

Poor  Jess,  he  was  ever  faithful  to  the  "entente,"  but 
his  trip  to  the  north  seemed  to  unbalance  him,  and  he 
committed  suicide  in  Butte,  Montana,  during  the  fall  of 
1898. 

One  day  Jess  came  to  me  and  said  that  he  thought  that 
he  had  found  the  thing  that  we  wanted,  and  asked  me  to 
go  with  him  to  see  the  head  man.  He  took  me  to  see  a 
man  called  George  Stinson.  Stinson  was  very  myste- 
rious about  the  matter,  would  tell  us  very  little  about  it, 
except  in  a  vague  way ;  that  his  party  was  to  leave  soon ; 
that  they  wanted  just  three  more  men ;  that  they  were 
going  up  on  their  own  boat,  and  that  the  affair  was  being 
backed  by  the  Standard  Oil  Company — this  latter  very 
confidentially,  after  Jess  had  paid  for  the  drinks,  for  we 
were  in  a  saloon.    Indeed,  the  entire  business  of  Seattle,  in 


12 


FROM  COTTENDALE  TO  SEATTLE 

those  days,  seemed  to  be  conducted  in  saloons,  and  only 
very  minor  details  considered  far  from  the  bar.  He  prom- 
ised to  come  in  the  morning  and  take  us  to  see  the  real 
boss,  whose  name  he  said  was  Rennick.  Jess  and  I  de- 
cided that  if  we  could  go  with  this  party  we  would  do  so. 
The  name  Standard  Oil  sounded  very  good  and  substan- 
tial to  me,  besides  it  was  getting  very  late  and  we  had  to 
do  something  shortly. 

The  next  morning  Stinson  took  us  to  the  Great  North- 
ern Hotel  and  into  a  luxurious  room,  wherein  sat  the 
man  known  as  George  Rennick.  This  man's  appearance 
and  manner  was  the  most  peculiar  and  bewildering  that  I 
have  ever  seen,  and  he  had  a  curious  effect  upon  me.  He 
was  dressed  in  a  suit  of  orange-colored  "mackinaw,"*blue 
shirt  and  boots.  His  hat,  which  he  did  not  remove,  was 
a  slouchy  cross  between  that  of  a  Mexican  cowboy  and  a 
Montana  rancher.  A  bottle  of  whiskey  sat  on  the  table, 
and  a  few  gold  nuggets  lay  carelessly  by.  But  more  of 
him  later.  Rennick  looked  us  over  keenly,  asked  no  ques- 
tions and  then,  talking  very  rapidly,  said,  as  nearly  as  I 
can  recall :  "Yes,  you  will  do.  There  is  only  one  thing — 
keep  your  damn  mouths  shut  and  ask  no  questions.  Sign 
this  contract  and  get  to  hell  out  of  here.  George  will 
explain  to  you.    Hurry  up!" 

I  was  completely  dumfounded,  and  had  no  resistance 
of  any  kind  in  me.  We  all  signed  and  got  out,  not  even 
having  a  copy  for  ourselves. 


*  Mackinaw — A  heavy,  thick,  plaid  material,  the  design  of  which 
is  large  and  striking;  in  a  local,  U.  S.  sense,  a  blanket  or  short 
double-breasted  coat. 


13 


AN   ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

Stinson,  who  from  now  on  will  be  referred  to  as 
George,  then  explained  that  we  had  signed  a  contract  to 
go  to  Alaska  for  a  period  of  two  years,  the  company  to 
pay  all  expenses  of  every  description,  and  in  addition 
thereto  we  were  to  be  allowed  the  sum  of  $i  per  day, 
which  could  accumulate  in  one  of  the  banks  here  or  would 
be  paid  to  any  relative  desired  monthly.  George  was 
careful  to  explain  here  that  this  was  done  because  one 
member  of  the  party  was  married  and  his  wife  had  some 
need  of  support  while  he  was  away ;  otherwise,  of  course, 
the  company  would  not  have  bothered  about  paying  a 
paltry  dollar  a  day  to  a  lot  of  men  who  would  so  soon  be 
well  off  in  their  own  right.  But  having  to  do  it  for  one, 
it  was  best  to  treat  all  alike,  even  in  small  things  of  this 
kind. 

In  addition  to  this,  the  contract  gave  us  a  one-half 
ownership  in  all  claims  staked  and  all  metal  brought  out. 
I  will  say  here  that  this  contract  was,  I  think,  a  very  fair 
one,  and  was  honestly  lived  up  to  by  the  company  besides. 
Before  leaving  Seattle  I  called  upon  a  Mr.  Gray,  who 
was  president  of  a  national  bank  on  Second  Avenue,  and 
he  assured  me  that  the  money  was  there  and  would  be 
paid  as  directed  monthly. 

Shortly  after  this  we  were  taken  with  the  other  men 
of  the  party  to  an  outfitter  and  told  to  purchase  anything 
at  all  that  we  wanted  for  the  trip.  This  we  did  in  a  very 
lavish  way,  getting  far  more  than  we  could  use  and 
everything  of  the  best  quality.  Certainly  the  company, 
whoever  they  were,  spent  a  considerable  sum  in  this  mat- 
ter, for  our  provisions  also  w^ere  most  plentiful  and  ex- 
cellent in  quality,  besides  being  especially  packed.     No 


14 


FROM  COTTENDALE  TO  SEATTLE 

party  ever  left  better  equipped  or  more  completely  out- 
fitted than  we  were. 

We  also  visited  the  steam  schooner  Augusta,  lying  in 
the  harbor,  which  had  been  purchased  by  the  company  for 
the  purpose  of  taking  us  up.  She  was  a  trim-looking  little 
ship  of  70  tons  burden,  and  her  forecastle  was  being 
made  ready  to  receive  us  aboard. 

I  have  now  arrived  at  a  stage  in  this  narrative  where 
the  reader,  in  order  to  at  all  understand  the  movements 
that  follow,  must  know  a  number  of  things  that  were 
entirely  unknown  to  me  at  that  time.  That  is,  the  reader 
must  know  now,  how  and  why  this  party  was  organized. 
Otherwise,  the  narrative  would  be  entirely  unintelligible,  I 
fear,  in  places;  besides,  the  organization  of  this  party 
is  in  itself  a  most  interesting  study.  The  work  of  a  mas- 
ter mind,  the  mind  of  a  man  so  clever  in  crookedness  that 
you  are  dazzled  by  his  performance  and  so  admire  his 
cleverness  that  you  forget  that  he  is  a  crook. 


"5 


CHAPTER  II. 
The  Organization  of  the  Party. 

The  prime  mover  and  master  mind  in  the  organization 
of  this  party  of  which  I  was  now  a  member  was  a  Mr. 
Homer  Pennick.  I  have  never  seen  this  Mr.  Pennick, 
but  during  my  stay  in  Alaska  and  upon  my  return  I 
learned  much  of  him  and  his  extraordinary  career.  What- 
ever can  be  said  against  Mr.  Pennick,  it  is  admitted  by  all 
that  he  is  no  ordinary  crook,  and  I  have  failed  to  discover 
a  single  individual  who  seemed  to  harbor  the  slightest 
bitterness  or  ill-will  toward  him.  Gen.  W,  G.  Le  Due  of 
Minnesota  is  said  to  have  known  more  about  him  than 
anyone  else,  and  I  regret  that  I  could  not  have  seen  Gen- 
eral Le  Due  before  his  death  and  told  him  of  this  expe- 
rience, for  General  Le  Due  was  a  friend  of  my  family  and 
was  sometimes  at  Cottendale  when  I  was  a  young  man, 
and  was  himself  a  man  of  very  extraordinary  knowledge 
and  experiences  in  life. 

However,  Mr.  Pennick  is  remembered  by  a  large  num- 
ber of  other  prominent  men  in  this  country,  who  pro- 
nounce him  the  most  talented  confidence  man  that  ever 
operated  on  this  continent.  His  genius  in  crookedness 
amounted  to  greatness,  it  is  said,  and  even  after  you  know 
this,  it  is  difficult  to  withhold  your  confidence  and  respect. 

He  is  described  as  a  faultlessly  groomed  man  with 
irresistible  manners,  whose  occupation  has  always  been 
separating  American  millionaires  from  some  of  their  hard- 

i6 


THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  PARTY 

earned  cash,  for  be  it  remembered  that  Pennick  always 
went  for  big  game.  The  man  with  a  few  thousand  was 
always  safe  in  his  hands,  and  he  is  ever  ready  to  help  a 
fellow  who  is  down  on  his  luck. 

The  last  I  heard  of  him  he  was  said  to  be  residing  on 
a  beautiful  estate  on  the  Rhine,  where  he  could  enjoy  that 
quiet  and  freedom  of  action  that  might  be  to  some  degree 
interfered  with  here. 

It  seems  that  Mr.  Pennick  first  came  into  some  notoriety 
back  in  the  seventies.  At  that  time  there  was  quite  a 
prosperous  little  mining  district  around  Port  Arthur,  on 
the  Canadian  side  of  Lake  Superior.  Mr.  Pennick  came 
into  this  district  and  purchased  from  the  Canadian  Gov- 
ernment some  24,000  acres  of  land,  paying  therefor  $1 
per  acre.  He  had  this  land  surveyed  and  laid  off  into 
sections  and  had  some  maps  and  blueprints  prepared. 
He  then  smuggled  in  eleven  barrels  of  tin  ore  from  Eng- 
land, and  salted  it  down  on  this  property.  The  following 
year  he  sent  out  a  prospecting  party,  who  returned  with 
magnificent  specimens  of  tin  ore.  With  this  ore,  his 
maps  and  deeds  for  the  property  he  organized  a  company 
in  New  York  City  and  sold  some  $800,000  worth  of 
stock.  Early  the  next  summer  the  stock  owners,  for 
some  reason,  became  suspicious  and  sent  out  an  explor- 
ing party  on  their  own  responsibility.  The  whole  fraud 
was  then  exposed,  even  the  empty  barrels  from  the  Corn- 
wall Tin  Mines  found  and  brought  down  to  New  York. 
It  is  not  known  exactly  how  Mr.  Pennick  got  out  of  this 
affair.  It  is  known  that  he  was  in  prison  for  awhile,  and 
some  say  he  bribed  a  judge.     Anyway,  he  shortly  after- 


17 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

wards  appeared  in  the  mining  districts  of  the  West,  where 
he  became  known  as  the  most  successful  swindler  in  the 
trade. 

After  being  connected  with  various  big  and  shady 
transactions,  he  finally,  by  accident  it  is  said,  got  control 
of  one  of  the  best  properties  in  Colorado.  This  was  a 
mine  called  the  Robert  E.  Lee,  and  this  he  sold  to  an 
English  syndicate  for  something  like  a  million  dollars. 
We  next  hear  of  him  as  a  plunger  on  the  Chicago  Ex- 
change, where  he  became  bankrupt  in  a  short  time.  He 
then  returned  to  the  mining  business,  but,  being  too  well 
known  in  the  West  now  for  success  along  his  lines,  he 
went  to  Cook's  Inlet,  in  Alaska,  a  district  which  had  for 
years  been  yielding  placer  gold  in  modest  quantities.  Here 
he  selected  a  site  for  a  town  which  he  named  Homer  for 
himself,  and  staked  off  a  certain  amount  of  the  adjoining 
country  as  mining  claims. 

It  seems  that  he  was  here  when  he  heard  of  the  dis- 
covery of  the  Klondike.  He  at  once  started  out,  and  on 
the  way  down  met  the  man  who  was  to  be  his  assistant 
and  partner  in  carrying  out  some  of  his  future  opera- 
tions. This  man  was  George  Rennick,  the  same  that  I 
saw  first  at  the  Great  Northern  Hotel,  and  whose  dis- 
patch in  business  matters  had  so  amazed  me. 

Rennick  was  himself  a  swindler  of  some  note,  having 
served  a  term  in  a  Federal  prison  for  his  connection  with 
a  mining  swindle  known  as  "The  Little  Bear's  Nest." 
Rennick  was  a  much  commoner  type  of  criminal  than 
Pennick.  Nothing  was  too  small  for  him  to  steal  or  too 
dirty  for  his  undertaking.  He  was  a  man  of  extraordi- 
nary cunning  and  knowledge  of  human  nature,  but  his 


THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  PARTY 

most  valuable  qualities  to  Pennick  were  his  manners, 
appearance  and  dress,  which  were  exactly  what  the  East- 
ern imagination  had  pictured  that  of  a  prosperous  Klon- 
diker  to  be.  This  pair,  having  arrived  in  Seattle  on  the 
same  steamer,  at  once  began  to  lay  plans  for  a  wholesale 
robbery  of  Eastern  people.  Pennick's  genius  was  for 
working  big  game  and  his  power  lay  in  his  ability  to 
meet  and  interest  big  financiers  in  his  enterprises.  He 
used  Rennick  just  as  he  chose,  gave  him  so  much  of  the 
spoils  as  he  cared  to,  and  permitted  him  to  fleece  and 
blackmail  any  small  fish  that  happened  to  be  drawn  into 
the  net. 

The  first  move  was  to  borrow  $20,000  worth  of  gold 
nuggets.  This  they  succeeded  in  doing  from  a  prominent 
banker  in  Seattle,  whose  name  I  withhold  because  of  the 
respect  and  friendship  I  in  after  years  had  for  his  wife 
and  daughter.  In  a  few  days  this  remarkable  pair  were 
registered  at  the  Palmer  House,  in  Chicago.  Rennick 
was  dressed  as  a  Klondiker — blue  shirt,  slouch  hat  and 
mackinaw.  He  said  he  had  just  come  out  from  the  Klon- 
dike, had  been  working  very  hard  and  had  just  come  over 
to  see  the  town  and  have  a  little  fun.  He  spent  money 
very  freely,  and  on  opportune  occasions  would  show  a  few 
handfuls  of  nuggets.  He  was  quite  reluctant  in  talking 
about  Alaska,  but  he  let  the  boys  know  that  he  had  a  hole 
in  the  ground  up  there  somewhere  which  he  was  in  the 
habit  of  visiting  after  his  profligate  trips  east. 

In  the  meantime,  Pennick,  who  was  elegantly  dressed 
and  entertaining  lavishly,  was  pointing  him  out  and  in- 
troducing him  as  a  Klondiker  who  had  just  come  out  from 
the  interior  with  a  fortune.     He  said  that  he  had  taken 


19 


AN   ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

him  down  to  San  Francisco,  where  they  had  wined  him 
and  dined  him,  but  had  been  unable  to  get  anything  out 
of  him  as  to  what  or  where  his  properties  were.  Being 
convinced,  however,  that  this  man  had  something  very 
splendid,  he  had  brought  him  over  to  Chicago  to  see  if 
a  company  could  not  be  organized  that  would  make  it 
profitable  to  all  concerned. 

After  much  persuasion  and  work  in  each  case  on  the 
part  of  Pennick  and  others,  this  poor,  ignorant  Klondiker 
Rennick  was  finally  persuaded  to  sell  certain  interests  in 
his  claims  in  Alaska.  A  number  of  companies  were 
organized  here,  in  each  case  Rennick  receiving  from 
$5,000  to  $20,000  in  cash  upon  the  passing  of  the  papers. 
Philadelphia,  being  a  good  town,  was  worked  in  the  same 
way,  as  well  as  several  other  places,  and  some  big  silk 
manufacturers  at  Paterson,  New  Jersey,  to  my  own 
knowledge,  can  bear  witness  that  that  town  also  was  not 
overlooked. 

Finally,  New  York  was  reached  and  the  whole  thing 
repeated  there  even  on  a  larger  scale.  Among  the  com- 
panies large  and  small  that  were  organized  in  New  York 
there  was  one  at  26  Broadway.  This  being  the  head- 
quarters of  the  Standard  Oil  Company,  illustrates  in  a 
way  the  ability  of  Mr.  Pennick  to  reach  and  interest  the 
most  important  financiers. 

This  company  was  backed  and  undertaken,  as  I  after- 
wards understood  from  Mr.  Edwards,  by  three  perfectly 
legitimate  business  men  who  were  connected  officially 
with  the  Standard  Oil  Company.  It  was  a  private  un- 
dertaking of  these  gentlemen,  however,  and  was  in  no 
way  whatever  connected  with  the  affairs  of  the  Standard 


20 


THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  THE   PARTY 

Oil  Company.  In  this  particular  case  Rennick  received 
five  $i,ooo  bills  before  any  of  the  papers  were  signed. 
He  then  signed  a  paper  obligating  himself  to  take  into 
Alaska  a  party  of  ten  men,  prospectors,  and  to  stake  them 
on  "pay  dirt."  As  to  the  exact  geographic  position  of 
this  "pay  dirt"  Mr.  Rennick  said  nothing.  Indeed,  it 
was  especially  stipulated  that  he  would  not  be  required 
to  do  so.  It  might  be  in  the  totem  pole  forest  of  Wrangle, 
or  it  might  be  a  few  thousand  miles  around  the  corner  at 
the  mouth  of  the  frozen  Mackenzie.  However,  this  did 
not  matter.  "Pay  dirt"  was  what  was  wanted,  and  you 
could  not  expect  a  man  to  disclose  the  exact  whereabouts 
of  so  much  wealth  for  a  pittance  like  $5,000. 

Everything  was  very  speedily  and  satisfactorily  ar- 
ranged. A  Mr.  Edwards  was  selected  to  represent  the 
company.  He  and  Rennick  were  at  once  to  go  to  Seattle 
and  organize  the  party.  Rennick  was  to  have  complete 
control  until  the  party  was  properly  located,  according  to 
his  contract;  then  Mr.  Edwards,  the  representative  of  the 
company,  was  to  take  charge. 

This  Mr.  Edwards  was  a  cool,  calculating  man,  a  good 
New  York  type.  He  was  about  fifty  years  of  age,  had 
some  considerable  mechanical  knowledge,  and  had  been 
connected,  I  believe,  with  The  Acme  Works  in  Brooklyn. 
He  had  spent  a  year  or  two  in  South  America  for  the 
Standard  Oil  people  and  was  in  this  matter  receiving  a 
salary  of  $5,000  a  year,  in  addition  to  some  interest  he 
had  in  the  undertaking.  Edwards  was  a  man  of  splendid 
determination  and  stuck  to  Rennick  like  a  leech,  so  that 
Rennick  could  not  shake  him  and  finally  had  to  go  to 
Seattle  with  him,  much  as  he  disliked  to  do  so. 


21 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

Mr.  Edwards  and  Rennick  had  arrived  in  Seattle  some 
weeks  before  myself,  where  Rennick  at  once  began  to 
invent  all  manner  of  excuses  for  delay  and  for  forcing- 
further  money  out  of  the  company.  Something  had  been 
done,  however,  in  the  way  of  organization.  A  steam 
schooner  had  been  purchased  in  Astoria,  Oregon,  and 
brought  around  to  Seattle,  and  some  members  of  the 
party  also  had  been  engaged. 

After  Rennick  had  exhausted  his  ingenuity  in  delaying 
the  party,  he  pretended  at  last  to  be  ill  and  procured  a 
doctor  to  say  that  he  must  at  once  go  to  Hot  Springs, 
Arkansas.  In  order  to  make  this  more  certainly  work, 
he  was  pronounced  to  have  contracted  a  loathsome  dis- 
ease which  was  sure  to  disqualify  him  for  so  intimate  per- 
sonal association  as  this  trip  required.  He  insisted,  how- 
ever, that  he  had  a  partner  who  was  just  as  familiar 
with  that  "pay  dirt"  as  he  himself  was;  that  he  did  not 
then  know  where  his  partner  was,  but  was  expecting  him 
in  Seattle  every  day,  and  as  soon  as  he  came  he  would 
have  him  take  his  place  and  go  with  Edwards,  carrying 
out  his  (Rennick's)  part  of  the  contract. 

As  some  thousands  of  dollars  had  already  been  spent 
and  the  tale  seemed  very  plausible,  especially  as  Rennick 
'had  often  referred  to  this  partner  in  New  York  and  other 
places,  there  was  nothing  for  Edwards  to  do  but  to  wait. 

In  the  meantime,  Rennick  began  a  search  among  the 
cosmopolitan  mass  of  bums  and  blacklegs  then  in  Seattle 
for  some  man  that  he  could  pass  off  for  his  partner.  The 
man  that  he  finally  introduced  as  his  partner  was  named 
George  Stinson,  and  how  he  came  to  be  his  partner  I  will 
let  Stinson  himself  relate  in  his  own  way. 


22 


THE  ORGANIZATION   OF  THE  PARTY 

Four  years  after  these  occurrences  I  was  driving  one 
afternoon  on  the  Lunetta  in  the  City  of  Manila.  I  saw 
Stinson  on  the  sidewalk.  I  recognized  him  instantly. 
There  was  no  mistaking  him — the  same  red  beard  and 
small  blue  eyes,  the  same  massive  form  and  wobbling 
gate.  I  sprang  from  the  "Carremetta"  and  going  toward 
him  called  him  by  his  first  name — George.  He  turned 
around  and  seeing  me  in  the  uniform  of  an  artillery  officer 
saluted  and  said:  "I  beg  your  pardon,  sir.  I  thought 
you  spoke  to  me."  He  then  recognized  me,  and  seemed 
to  be  pleased  at  seeing  me  again.  I  asked  him  to  drive 
with  me.  which  he  did. 

We  went  to  the  Hotel  Oriente  and  had  a  long  chat.  I 
told  him  that  I  would  like  to  know  his  part  of  that  Alaska 
trip  of  ours ;  that  the  trip  was  a  thing  of  the  past  now, 
and  could  not  in  any  way  hurt  or  concern  anyone.  In 
that  peculiarly  positive  and  short-sentenced  manner  of  his 
he  very  readily  told  me  his  connection  with  the  trip,  and 
I  reproduce  his  words  here  as  nearly  verbatim  as  pos- 
sible, I  having  written  them  down  immediately  afterwards 
in  my  quarters  at  Fort  Santiago : 

"I  never  saw  Rennick  until  he  came  to  see  me  in 
Seattle  about  two  weeks  before  I  met  you.  I  am  a 
sailor  most  of  my  life,  though  I  have  prospected  some, 
too,  most  everywhere,  in  Africa,  South  America  and  in 
Australia,  in  the  United  States,  too,  and  about  ten  years 
ago  I  was  Prospecting  down  here  on  this  island  in  Ben- 
quet  Province.  For  the  last  several  years  I  have  gone  in 
whaling  ships,  and,  as  you  know,  I  am  familiar  with  the 
coast  from  California  up  to  the  Arctic.  I  know,  too, 
most  all  the  Indian  tribes  and  many  of  the  squaw  men 
and  traders  along  the  coast.  Well,  I  came  down  to  Seat- 
tle that  year  after  spending  the  winter  in  the  Arctic 
Ocean  near  Cape  Barrow.     I    had    about    $500,  but  I 

23 


AN   ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

spent  this  in  two  or  three  weeks.  I  thought  I  would  go 
to  the  Klondike,  but  this  fellow  Rennick  came  to  me 
when  I  was  about  broke.  He  said  that  he  had  a  good 
thing  up  in  Alaska  and  wanted  a  man  to  take  a  party 
up  there  for  him.  I  thought  he  was  on  the  square ;  he 
loaned  me  a  hundred  dollars  and  asked  me  to  wait  a 
few  days.  I  saw  him  every  day,  and  after  a  few 
days  he  took  me  to  a  room  and  told  me  his  plans.  He 
said  that  he  had  signed  a  contract  in  New  York  to 
take  a  party  up  to  Alaska  and  stake  them,  but  that  he 
was  sick  and  could  not  go;  besides,  they  had  treated 
him  very  badly,  and  he  was  going  to  shake  them.  He 
said  he  could  fix  it  so  that  I  could  make  some  money 
out  of  it,  and  after  a  few  days  it  was  agreed  that  I  was 
to  represent  myself  as  his  partner.  He  gave  me  $500, 
and  I  was  to  work  Edwards  for  whatever  I  could  get 
before  we  started.  He  thought  Edwards  would  stand 
for  $2,000.  If  Edwards  ponied  up,  I  was  to  take  the 
party  to  the  most  inaccessible  place  I  could  find,  some- 
where where  they  could  neither  get  in  or  out.  It  was 
important  that  Edwards  be  placed  somewhere  for  the 
winter  where  he  could  not  communicate  with  his 
friends. 

"That  was  my  part — to  keep  Edwards  and  you  fel- 
lows from  civilization  until  the  following  spring.  This 
would  enable  Rennick  to  carry  on  his  plans  in  Seat- 
tle during  the  winter  and  spring,  when  a  big  rush 
would  certainly  take  place.  All  these  things  were  very 
carefully  gone  over  and  understood  by  Rennick  and  my- 
self, and  after  a  few  days  we  were  ready  to  spring 
it  on  Edwards. 

"It  was  arranged  that  Rennick  was  to  go  to  Ed- 
ward's room  at  the  Great  Northern  Hotel  and  engage 
him  in  a  rather  despondent  conversation  over  the  non- 
appearance of  his  partner.  After  a  little  while  I  was 
to  appear.  Rennick  was  to  recognize  me  as  his  old 
partner,  whom  he  had  been  expecting  for  some  days 
and  after  a  greeting  the  whole  thing  was  to  be  sprung. 

''Well,  I  went  to  the  Great  Northern  and  sat  down 


24 


THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  PARTY 

in  a  chair.  I  saw  Rennick  come  through  and  go  into 
the  elevator.  If  he  did  not  return  in  ten  minutes,  I  was 
to  follow.  After  ten  minutes  I  went  up  and  knocked 
on  Edwards'  door.  The  door  was  opened  and  Ren- 
nick jumped  up  and,  grabbing  me  by  the  hand,  said: 
'You  damn  old  scoundrel !  Where  in  the  hell  have  you 
been?  I  have  been  looking  for  you  everywhere.'  After 
we  had  exchanged  greetings  I  told  him  I  had  just 
come  out  and  had  been  down  in  San  Francisco  for  a 
few  weeks.  He  then  introduced  me  to  Edwards.  We 
all  sat  down,  and  Rennick  asked  some  questions  about 
the  mines,  how  were  the  claims  on  Wild  Goose  Creek 
panning,  had  I  gone  over  to  Dead  Horse  Canyon 
before  I  left,  and  some  other  questions  about  ficti- 
tious places. 

"It  was  certainly  funny.  He  then  said,  'Well,  George, 
you  have  got  to  go  right  back,'  and  then  told  me  about 
Edwards'  party,  how  he  himself  had  to  go  to  Hot 
Springs,  and  all  that  bunk.  I  kind  of  laughed  this  off, 
and  told  him  that  I  could  not  think  of  going  back  to 
Alaska  now.  After  a  few  days,  when  both  Rennick 
and  myself  were  satisfied  that  Edwards  was  com- 
pletely deceived,  I  consented  to  take  the  party  off  his 
hands,  provided  Edwards  would  pay  me  $2,000  cash. 
This  rather  staggered  Edwards,  and  after  some  tele- 
graphing to  New  York  I  accepted  $1,500,  which  Ed- 
wards paid  me  at  once.  I  think  you  know  the  balance. 
Gotten,  and  how  well  I  carried  out  my  agreement  with 
Rennick.  Rennick  robbed  me  before  I  left  Seattle, 
and  I  hope  he  is  in  hell  by  now.  I  did  not  know  where 
to  take  you  fellows,  besides  it  was  not  too  late  for 
you  to  get  out  if  we  went  up  at  once,  so  we  invented 
that  yarn  about  the  schooner  which  you  remember  we 
wasted  so  much  time  in  hunting.  Well,  when  we  got  to 
Sitka  I  saw  Steve  McGee  and  told  him  this  business. 
Steve  said  that  Yakutat  was  the  place  to  lose  the 
damn  scoundrels.  So  I  went  to  Yakutat.  That  was 
a  hard  winter  on  me.  I  was  afraid  you  fellows  would 
hang  me.  I  was  not  afraid  of  you,  but  I  thought  Jess 
or  Brooks  might  kill  me." 

25 


AN   ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

George  would  tell  me  nothing  as  to  how  the  party 
finally  broke  up,  except  in  a  general  way  that  they  had 
all  got  out,  he  believed,  and  I  purposely  avoided  asking 
him  what  had  become  of  our  dogs.  Stinson  then 
told  me  that  he  had  been  prospecting  up  in  Benguet  Prov- 
ince, but  had  gone  broke  and  asked  me  if  I  could  not  see 
Captain  Harding,  the  Chief  of  Police  of  Manila,  and  have 
him  appointed  on  the  Municipal  Police  Force.  I  knew 
Jack  Harding,  having  been  a  non-commissioned  officer 
with  him  in  the  same  regiment.  However,  I  also  knew 
Stinson,  and  I  could  not  possibly  recommend  him  for  a 
position  of  this  kind.  I  knew  him  too  well  for  that,  and 
could  not  inflict  him  on  the  small  Chinese  merchants  and 
other  helpless  people  who  might  be  on  his  post.  As 
Manila  was  at  that  time,  George  would  have  made  such  a 
position  much  more  profitable  than  prospecting. 

Thus  it  was  that  Stinson  came  to  be  in  charge  of  this 
party.  H  Rennick  has  searched  the  world  over  he  could 
not  have  found  a  man  better  fitted  to  carry  out  this  part 
of  the  plan. 

Stinson  was  the  most  perplexing  study  I  have  ever 
found  in  human  nature.  At  times  it  would  seem  that  he 
just  missed  being  a  fine  man.  He  had  a  splendid  prac- 
tical knowledge  of  the  world,  some  considerable  education 
and  fine  natural  abilities. 

But  with  all  this  he  was  the  most  debased,  cruel  and 
inhuman  creature  I  have  ever  known.  He  had,  I  believe, 
some  considerable  criminal  record,  including  murder,  and 
his  passions  and  habits  were  the  most  violent  and  uncon- 
trolled imaginable.  He  had,  too,  a  most  extraordinary 
cunning,  and  was  a  very  dangerous  man  with  it  all,  be- 
cause he  knew  no  fear. 

26 


CHAPTER    III. 
From  Seattle  to  Sitka. 

Thus  it  is  seen  that  we  had  no  prospects  whatever  from 
the  beginning.  We  were  merely  to  be  ditched  and  aban- 
doned in  some  inaccessible  place  a  thousand  miles  from 
civilization  and  left  to  die  or  get  out  the  best  we  could. 

The  men  that  Rennick  and  Stinson  selected  to  compose 
this  party  were  all  chosen  on  account  of  their  lack  of  expe- 
rience, their  simplicity  of  mind  and  because  they  appeared 
little  likely  to  cause  future  trouble.  I  seemed  to  fulfill 
these  requirements  without  difficulty. 

They  were,  for  the  most  part,  very  rough  and  unde- 
sirable companions,  Lang  and  Romeo  being,  to  some  ex- 
tent, exceptions  in  this  respect.  Lang  remained  with  the 
party  to  the  end,  and  shortly  after  returning  to  the  States 
committed  suicide,  as  has  been  stated.  Romeo  came  out 
with  me,  as  will  appear  later. 

Jack  Rhyne  was  a  young  Irishman,  much  nearer  my 
own  age  than  the  others,  and  came  from  the  Barbary 
Coast  of  San  Francisco.  He  was  what  is  called  a  water- 
front tough  and  barroom  loafer,  though  not  a  very  vicious 
type.  He  had  a  fine  wit  and  could  be  attractive  in  a  way. 
I  met  him  several  years  afterwards  on  Market  Street,  in 
San  Francisco.  He  was  a  sign  painter  then,  and  told  me 
that  Jimmy  Landon,  another  member  of  our  party,  had 
contracted  the  habit  of  going  prospecting  in  other  peo- 
ple's pockets,  and  in  consequence  thereof  was  at  that 
time  a  member  of  the  city  street  builders'  association,  that 


27 


AN   ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

uniformed  organization  that  used  to  be  distinguished  by  a 
very  large  ball  and  chain  worn  on  the  ankles.  This  Jimmy 
was  a  very  disgusting  little  person,  and  I  hardly  know 
how  to  class  him,  since  his  kind  is  rarely  found  except  in. 
the  slums  proper. 

Tom  Bull  had  spent  his  entire  life  as  a  woodsman  and 
hunter,  and  in  this  field  he  had  certain  expert  knowledge 
of  a  crude  nature  that  would  have  delighted  Mr.  Roose- 
velt. However,  had  Mr.  Roosevelt  lived  with  him  as 
intimately  as  I  did  for  several  months,  he  would  have 
seen  a  larger  side  of  him  not  so  interesting  or  attractive. 
Tom  had  taken  up  a  ranch  near  Cape  Flatery,  where  he 
lived  entirely  by  hunting,  and  his  nearest  neighbor  was 
a  man  named  Wells,  who  was  from  my  native  county  in 
North  Carolina.  Tom  was  a  widower,  and  from  his  own 
description  of  his  married  life  and  his  treatment  of  his 
wife  I  should  say  that  he  was  also  a  murderer. 

Brooks  was  a  lumberjack  from  Minnesota,  quiet  and 
very  ignorant.  He  was  also  suspicious  and  moody,  and 
spent  all  his  spare  time  whittling  on  a  stick  with  a  pocket 
knife.  He  was  a  type  that  has  since  been  organized  into  the 
I.  W.  W.'s,  and,  excepting  George,  was  the  most  treach- 
erous and  dangerous  man  in  the  party.  Two  other  mem- 
bers of  the  party  deserted  us  before  we  really  got  under 
way,  so  we  numbered  only  eight  instead  of  ten,  as  in- 
tended. One  of  these  deserters  was  a  mild-appearing  man 
who  had  spent  his  life  prospecting  with  a  Burro  in  the 
deserts  of  Arizona ;  the  other  was  a  Swede  and  a  sailor, 
I  believe. 

The  organization  of  our  party  had  excited  considerable 
interest  in  Seattle — the  supposed  backing  of  the  Stand- 

28 


FROM    SEATTLE  TO   SITKA 

ard  Oil  Company,  the  excellency  of  our  equipment,  the 
special  boat  and,  above  all,  perhaps,  the  mystery  of  our 
destination,  this  latter  secret  being  all  the  easier  guarded 
because  no  one  at  all  knew  at  that  time  where  we  were 
going,  George  himself  having  not  yet  decided.  The  pa- 
pers had  given  us  considerable  notice,  and  on  the  day  of 
our  departure  six  or  seven  hundred  people  assembled  to 
see  us  off,  the  crowd  being  greatly  augmented,  I  sup- 
pose, by  the  presence  of  a  brass  band  that  had  been  sent 
down  by  one  of  the  outfitting  establishments. 

All  of  my  newly  made  friends  were  on  hand  and  wished 
me  much  success.  My  last  act  of  gallantry  was  to  re- 
move my  new  silk  necktie  and  present  it  to  sweet  Grace 
McAllester,  for  I  would  need  it  no  more  in  the  land  of 
the  Polar  Bear.  It  was  a  loud  and  rough  crowd  that  stood 
about  to  see  us  off,  and  several  would-be  stowaways  had 
to  be  thrown  ashore.  We  had  proceeded  only  a  few  hun- 
dred yards  from  the  dock  when  a  fight  took  place  on  the 
ship  that  came  near  developing  into  a  free-for-all  fight 
between  the  crew  and  several  members  of  our  party.  It 
seems  that  George  and  Tom,  who  were  quite  drunk  at 
this  time,  made  an  entirely  unprovoked  attack  upon  the 
cook,  who  called  to  his  assistance  a  sailor.  Both  sides 
were  well  battered  up  before  the  matter  was  quieted,  and 
to  make  matters  worse,  some  of  our  dogs  just  at  that 
time  got  loose  on  deck  and  began  to  chew  each  other  up 
in  a  vigorous  way,  so  that  the  deck  was  for  some  minutes 
very  animated  and  excited  by  brute  man  and  brute  dog, 
each  trying  to  destroy  his  own  particular  kind. 

We  stopped  at  the  beautiful  little  city  of  Port  Town- 
send,  which  is  the  clearance  port  of  Puget  Sound,  and 


29 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

here  two  members  of  the  party  quietly  stole  away  and 
were  seen  no  more.  This  place  is  beautifully  situated 
almost  at  the  foot  of  the  Olympic  Mountains,  and  here  I 
afterwards  spent  two  very  happy  years  as  an  army  officer. 
We  passed  from  here  across  the  straits  and  entered  what 
is  known  as  the  inside  passage.  This  passage  may  prop- 
erly be  said  to  commence  at  Olympia,  Washington,  and, 
extending  for  about  1,300  miles,  terminates  in  what  is 
known  as  The  Lynn  Cannel,  Alaska. 

From  a  scenic  standpoint,  it  is  one  of  the  most  beau- 
tiful waterways  in  the  world,  and  in  formation  and  ap- 
pearance is  very  similar  to  the  "fjords"  of  Norway,  only 
here  there  are  no  habitations.  It  is  simply  a  network  of 
islands  and  waterways.  It  narrows  in  places  to  a  few 
hundred  feet,  then  widens  and  branches  in  all  directions. 
You  find  your  way  abruptly  stopped  by  a  gigantic  moun- 
tain, and  just  when  you  are  sure  that  there  is  no  way 
through,  a  hole  appears  to  the  right  or  left ;  you  wonder 
will  the  ship  pass  through — yes,  it  is  just  large  enough, 
and  you  enter  a  bay  or  a  fine  estuary. 

Occasionally  you  get  a  glimpse  of  the  open  sea  through 
some  pass  or  a  hole  in  the  wall,  but  you  hasten  back  to 
your  covered  way  and  continue  on  in  the  shadows  and 
under  the  hills. 

Some  of  the  mountains  are  black  and  covered  with 
giant  forests,  while  others  are  tall  and  mirror  their  daz- 
zling white  tops  in  your  path.  Here  a  mighty  waterfall 
pours  over  a  precipice,  and  there  a  little  white  glacier 
sparkles  far  up  in  the  valley.  No  habitation  of  man  is  on 
these  shores;  it  is  lonely,  and  an  awful  stillness  is  on  the 
face  of  the  earth. 


30 


FROM   SEATTLE  TO  SITKA 

We  traveled  through  this  mystic  way  for  several  days, 
and  made  our  first  stop  at  a  place  called  Bella-Bella.  This 
was  a  place  of  no  importance,  being  an  Indian  village  of 
about  twenty  huts  and  the  station  of  a  Hudson  Bay 
trader.  We  purchased  some  "uclous"  (dried  fish)  for 
our  dogs  here  and  proceeded  at  once. 

Our  ship  turned  out  to  be  very  comfortable  and  a 
good  sea  boat,  but  her  machinery  was  old  and  out  of 
repair,  so  that  when  we  had  to  depend  upon  steam  alone, 
which  was  practically  all  the  time,  we  were  very  slow, 
not  being  able  to  do  better  than  five  knots  an  hour. 

We  were  all  by  now  quite  well  acquainted  and  were 
quartered  in  the  forecastle  along  with  the  ship's  cook  and 
three  sailors.  We  slept  on  rough  wooden  berths  in  our 
own  blankets,  and  slept  exceedingly  well  at  that.  Ed- 
wards was  quartered  aft  with  the  ship's  officers,  and  we 
saw  nothing  whatever  of  him  during  the  voyage,  and  it 
was  not  until  after  we  landed  that  we  got  at  all  acquainted 
with  him. 

The  captain,  who  took  orders  only  from  George,  ap- 
peared to  know  these  waters  perfectly.  He  was  said  to 
have  been  the  most  successful  smuggler  of  Chinese  and 
opium  on  the  coast,  which  is  the  finest  possible  compli- 
ment to  his  ability  as  a  navigator  and  a  scamp. 

We  visited  a  number  of  "out-of-the-way"  inlets  and 
bays  in  search  of  a  mysterious  schooner  that  was  sup- 
posed to  belong  to  Mr.  Rennick,  and  for  which  George 
had  some  very  important  orders,  this  being  a  device  de- 
signed to  delay  us  en  route  so  that  we  would  not  arrive 
somewhere  too  early  to  be  held  in  over  the  winter. 

In  this  way  we  visited  old  Metlakhatla,  which  deserves 


31 


AN   ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

more  than  a  passing  notice.  Here  we  found  a  regularly 
laid-out  town  with  well-constructed  two-story  houses,  a 
very  handsome  and  large  church,  a  salmon  cannery,  a  sash 
and  door  factory,  a  sawmill  and  brickyard.  Yet  there 
was  not  a  single  human  being  in  all  this  town,  or  within 
fifty  miles  of  it.  The  place  had  been  absolutely  abandoned 
since  1887.  No  man,  woman  or  child  greets  you  as  you 
walk  through  these  silent  streets;  all  is  quiet,  dead  and 
sad  at  old  Metlakhatla. 

Here  was  once  the  home  of  quite  a  large  tribe  of 
Chimesyan  Indians.  They  were  said  to  have  been  the 
most  fierce  and  warlike  of  all  the  Northwestern  tribes, 
and  at  times  were  cannibals.  In  1857  a  Rev,  Mr.  Duncan, 
a  Scotch  missionary,  went  among  them  and  in  a  few 
months  the  entire  tribe  joined  him  almost  en  masse.  Mr. 
Duncan  labored  with  splendid  judgment  for  their  mate- 
rial and  spiritual  advancement,  and  with  very  pronounced 
success,  especially  when  compared  with  the  rather  sorry 
achievements  of  missionaries  in  general  on  this  continent. 

Our  missionaries  do  not  seem  to  be  selected  on  account 
of  any  particular  fitness  for  the  work  undertaken,  but 
rather  for  entire  unfitness  to  do  anything  at  home. 

Mr.  Duncan's  idea  was  not  to  teach  them  religion 
alone,  but  to  instruct  them  in  crafts  and  occupations  which 
would  make  of  them  a  self-supporting  and  self-respecting 
community.  With  this  idea  in  mind,  he  went  back  to 
England  and  perfected  himself  in  such  things  as  black- 
smithing,  rope  making,  carpentering  and  brickmaking. 
He  learned  to  construct  and  operate  a  sawmill,  and  even 
learned  the  gamut  on  each  of  twenty  band  instruments  in 
order  that  he  could  teach  them  music  and  organize  a 


32 


FROM    SEATTLE  TO   SITKA 

band.  His  success  was  splendid,  and  by  1886  these 
Indians  were  living  upon  a  very  high  plain  of  civilization 
in  the  town  which  I  have  just  described  as  abandoned. 
About  this  time  Mr.  Duncan  became  greatly  annoyed  by 
threats  of  the  Canadian  Government  to  put  these  Indians 
on  a  reservation  status,  as  well  as  by  a  narrow  ecclesias- 
ticism  which  was  endeavoring  to  force  the  high  church 
services  upon  him.  He  finally  went  to  Washington  and 
procured  from  Mr.  Cleveland  Annette  Island,  a  fine,  rich 
island  in  southeastern  Alaska.  Here  he  took  the  entire 
tribe  in  1887. 

The  migration  was  made  in  canoes,  the  colony  taking 
with  them  such  of  their  property  as  was  readily  remov- 
able. A  new  town  was  established  named  Metlakhatla, 
after  the  old,  and  here,  under  the  Stars  and  Stripes,  they 
have  prospered  exceedingly,  and  are  a  most  unique  and 
interesting  community. 

We  next  stopped  at  Port  Simpson.  This  is  the  most 
northerly  port  on  the  Pacific  side  of  the  English  posses- 
sions. The  inland  passage  here  opens  into  a  fine  road- 
stead as  large  as  Hampton  Roads,  which,  in  turn,  opens 
directly  into  the  high  sea.  This  place  is  now  the  thriving 
little  city  of  Rupert,  and  is  destined  to  become  one  of 
the  important  cities  of  the  West.  It  is  six  hundred  miles 
nearer  Hongkong  and  Yokohama  than  Seattle  or  any 
American  port,  and  with  the  railroad  connections  with 
Winnepeg  which  it  now  has,  is  bound  to  become  a  city 
of  great  importance. 

The  American  Territory  of  Alaska  extends  to  within 
sight  of  Rupert,  a  fact  that  is  very  irritating  to  the 
Canadians,  and  two  islands  adjudged  American  territory 


33 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

by  a  decision  of  the  German  Emperor  are  so  located  as  to 
command  the  entrance  to  the  harbor.  This  especially 
causes  the  Canadians  concern. 

Port  Simpson,  on  this  my  first  visit,  was  a  very  small 
place,  containing  a  mission  and  a  Hudson  Bay  Post.  The 
Hudson  Bay  Company  was  the  agency  by  which  the  whole 
of  this  country  was  saved  to  the  British.  What  the  East 
Indian  Company  did  in  India,  the  Hudson  Bay  Company 
repeated  in  North  America  in  a  somewhat  smaller  way. 
The  history  of  the  British  Northwest  for  two  hundred 
years  is  the  history  of  the  Hudson  Bay  Company,  and 
now  that  we  are  to  leave  English  territory  it  is  well  to 
speak  of  it  for  a  moment  as  one  of  the  great  agencies 
that  have  given  to  this  whole  country  its  present  charac- 
teristics and  atmosphere  of  life. 

The  Hudson  Bay  Company  was  chartered  by  Charles 
II  in  1670,  and  is  therefore  the  oldest  concern  now  doing 
business  in  America.  The  charter  was  granted  to  certain 
persons,  who  styled  themselves  "Gentlemen  adventurers 
with  Prince  Rupert  at  their  head."  The  charter  con- 
veyed the  sole  right  to  "trade  with  the  natives,  to  estab- 
lish law  and  impose  penalties,  to  erect  forts,  maintain 
ships  of  war  and  to  make  peace  or  war  with  any  prince 
or  people  not  Christian." 

After  the  English  obtained  control  of  Canada  the  com- 
pany spread  rapidly  across  the  continent  and  became  a 
powerful  monopoly.  It  saved  the  whole  of  western  Can- 
ada to  the  English  and  made  a  hard  fight  for  "The  Ore- 
gon," that  magnificent  domain  now  known  as  Washing- 
ton and  Oregon. 

They  established  a  strong  fort  and  trading  post  on  the 


34 


FROM    SEATTLE  TO   SITKA 

site  whereon  is  now  situated  the  Military  Post  of  Van- 
couver Barracks  on  the  Columbia  River,  and  would  have 
no  doubt  established  the  English  in  control  of  this  entire 
country  but  for  Old  Whitman's  wagon. 

Perhaps  no  apparently  trivial  occurrence  since  the  loss 
of  the  proverbial  horseshoe  nail  has  had  so  important  re- 
sults as  the  fact  that  old  Whitman's  wagon  was  a  good 
one.  The  Hudson  Bay  people  were  well  established  in 
this  magnificent  domain  on  the  Columbia,  when  one  day 
a  very  peculiar  cracking  and  bumping  noise  was  heard 
far  up  the  valley  and  across  the  river.  This  was  old  Whit- 
man's wagon,  the  first  wagon  that  ever  crossed  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  and  it  arrived  on  the  Columbia  River  May 
2 1  St,  1836. 

The  Hudson  Bay  people  were  not  slow  to  realize  the 
full  import  of  this  accomplishment.  It  was  not  old  Whit- 
man that  they  objected  to — he  was  only  an  old  frontiers- 
man— but  in  the  wagon  they  saw  their  undoing.  If  one 
wagon  could  drive  from  Indiana  to  Oregon,  why  not  two, 
and  if  two,  why  not  a  thousand,  and  that  is  just  what 
happened.  A  thousand  followed  in  old  Whitman's  wake, 
and  The  Oregon  was  saved  to  the  Union. 

Whitman  himself,  after  making  a  trip  to  Washington 
to  protest  against  the  proposed  trading  of  Oregon  for  a 
cod  fishing  privilege  in  Newfoundland,  was  massacred  by 
Indians,  but  his  old  wagon  is  in  the  State  Museum  at 
Portland  and  its  image  is  on  the  great  seal  of  the  State  of 
Oregon. 

The  "Gentlemen  with  Prince  Rupert  at  their  head" 
thus  having  been  blocked  in  the  south  by  old  Whitman's 
wagon  were  also  checked  to  the  north  by  the  Russian- 


35 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

American  Fur  Company,  which,  hke  itself,  was  a  pow- 
erful monopoly.  The  influence  of  the  English  company 
on  the  Pacific,  therefore,  extended  from  Oregon  to  Alaska. 
Over  this  country  they  exerted  a  tremendous  influence, 
many  effects  of  which  are  apparent  even  to  the  present 
day.  They  devised  and  introduced  a  dialect  called 
Chanooke,  which  is  today  spoken  almost  entirely  by  all 
the  Indians  on  the  coast  from  Cook's  Inlet  to  the  Colum- 
bia River.  This  dialect  consists  only  of  about  200  words 
and  is  quite  easy  to  learn.  It  is  sometimes  referred  to  as 
the  Court  Language  of  the  Northwest.  Many  white  peo- 
ple speak  it  more  or  less,  and  a  number  of  prominent  peo- 
ple in  Seattle  and  elsewhere  take  great  pride  in  the  purity 
of  their  Chanooke.  It  is  a  combination  of  several  Indian 
dialects,  with  an  occasional  English  and  French  word 
corrupted  and  woven  in.  It  has  recently,  strangely 
enough,  given  to  the  English  language  a  word  that  will 
probably  remain.  That  is  "hooch,"  which  is  derived 
from  the  Chanooke  word  "Hoochenue,"  which  is  an  in- 
toxicating drink  illegally  made  by  the  Indians. 

To  the  north  the  Hudson  Bay  Company  was  met  by 
the  Russian-American  Fur  Company,  with  whom  they 
waged  fierce  war  for  almost  a  hundred  years.  The  Rus- 
sians first  reached  America  by  way  of  the  Aleutian 
Islands,  which,  like  a  line  of  stepping-stones,  extend  from 
the  American  coast  almost  to  Siberia.  The  Russian  trade 
was  at  first  carried  on  by  independent  bands  of  roving 
sea  dogs.  These  bands  of  adventurers  often  engaged  in 
desperate  wars  among  themselves,  and  the  loss  of  life 
among  the  natives  and  Russians  alike  during  this  period 
was  very  large.     Finally,  in  1780,  a  merchant,  Gregor 

36 


FROM    SEATTLE  TO   SITKA 

Shelikof,  organized  a  company  of  some  financial  strength, 
which  in  1799  was  chartered  by  Catherine  II  as  the  Rus- 
sian-American Fur  Company.  This  company  was  par- 
ticularly fortunate  in  the  selection  of  its  first  governor, 
George  Baronofif,  who  was  a  man  of  tremendous  organiz- 
ing power  and  very  great  administrative  ability.  Baron- 
off  moved  the  seat  of  his  government  further  south  and 
founded  the  city  of  Sitka. 

He  also  established  the  strong  Fort  of  Wrangle,  still 
further  south,  and  made  deadly  war  on  the  Hudson  Bay 
Company.  Under  his  administration  and  that  of  his  suc- 
cessor, Captain  Hayunusta,  the  company  became  rich  and 
powerful,  and  undertook  many  bold  enterprises,  among 
them  the  annexation  of  Hawaii  and  a  war  on  Japan. 

The  company  also  established  a  colony  in  California  at 
a  place  called  New  Albion,  on  the  Russian  River.  This 
colony  was  established  for  the  purpose  of  raising  supplies 
for  the  town  of  Sitka,  but  was  not  very  successful  in  this 
respect.  The  principal  difficulty  seems  to  have  been  in 
the  personnel  selected  to  conduct  this  enterprise,  who,  be- 
ing for  the  most  part  Aleutian  Indians  and  half-breeds 
transported  from  Alaska,  had  no  particular  taste  for 
agricultural  pursuits,  but  rather  betook  themselves  off  in 
a  body  on  long  hunting  trips  when  they  should  have  been 
attending  to  their  grain  and  cattle. 

They  did  quite  a  business  here,  however,  in  the  manu- 
facture of  plows  and  other  utensils  which  they  sold  to  the 
lazy  Spanish  ranchers  who  lived  to  the  south.  This  col- 
ony was  abandoned  and  sold  in  1844  to  a  Swiss  named 
Sutter,  the  same  who  five  years  afterwards  was  so  promi- 
nently connected  with  the  first  discovery  of  gold  in  Cali- 

37 


AN   ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

fornia.  In  1899  I  camped  for  a  month  on  the  Russian 
River,  and  there  are  still  many  evidences  of  this  Russian 
occupation. 

Thus  is  was  that  these  powerful  monopolies  fought 
among  themselves  for  greed  and  power  and  for  the  skins 
of  little  animals  until  civilization  came  and  put  an  end 
to  it.  Nor  must  it  be  forgotten  that  into  these  affairs 
there  also  came  the  far-reaching  hand  of  John  Jacob 
Astor,  a  man  with  a  vision  and  a  genius,  too,  all  his 
own. 

These  ships  and  traders  of  Astor's  were  a  different 
type  from  the  Russians  and  from  the  English, and  pros- 
pered rather  by  their  shrewdness  than  by  force  and  by 
the  attractiveness  of  their  New  England  goods.  Though 
the  English  drove  Astor  out  of  Astoria  in  1812,  he  was 
still  able  to  maintain  his  fleet  in  the  Pacific,  and  was  an 
important  factor  in  the  Northwest  and  in  Southeastern 
Alaska  for  fifty  years  or  more. 

From  Port  Simpson  we  passed  into  Alaskan  waters  and 
stopped  at  Mary  Island.  There  is  nothing  here  but  the 
custom  house,  but  here  we  had  the  misfortune  of  losing 
our  big  seven  hundred  pound  anchor.  This  was  the  fault 
of  the  mate,  who  ordered  it  let  go  without  seeing  that 
the  cable  was  made  fast,  so  the  anchor,  cable  and  all  went 
to  the  bottom  of  the  bay.  The  mate,  however,  passed 
the  blame  on  to  the  sailor  who  let  go,  and  gave  him  a 
dreadful  beating,  accompanied  by  great  explosions  of 
oaths. 

We  next  stopped  at  New  Metlakhatla,  where  some  of 
us  called  upon  the  venerable  Mr.  Duncan,  and  then  passed 
on  to   Ketchakan.     This  place  is  on  Prince  of  Wales 

38 


FROM   SEATTLE  TO  SITKA 

Island,  a  very  rich  island,  forty  miles  by  one  hundred 
and  forty  miles  long  and  destined  some  day  to  be  well 
populated.    We  spent  a  day  and  night  at  this  p  ace   and 
visited  the  Indian  huts  and  the  one  white  man  that   ived 
there     There  were  many  very  handsome  totem  poles  here, 
especially    across    the    narrow    strait    in    front    of    the 
settlement.    These  totems  are  usually  the  trunks  of  trees, 
carved  to  represent  fish,  animals  or  birds,  placed  one 
above  the  other.    Very  much  that  is  confusing  and  con- 
tradictory has  been  written  about  them  and  some  writers 
profess  to  have  discovered  a  great  variety  of  meanings 
and  causes  for  their  construction.    They  are  usually  found 
at  the  graves  of  the  dead,  but  are  sometimes  at  the  en- 
trance of  huts,  and  even  at  times  on  the  inside.     They 
represent  the  ^otem"  or  family  to  which  the  owner  be- 
longs, and  the  animal  is  the  ancestor  or  progenitor  from 
whkh  the  family  is  descended.     Some  of  them  are  very 
extraordinary  looking,  and  often  stand  from  twenty  to 

forty  feet  high. 

I  was  again  at  Ketchakan  in  1904  and  found  a  pros- 
perous little  town  of  800  white  people.  It  is  now  a  con- 
siderable city,  and  will  undoubtedly  continue  to  grow. 
As  yet  fishing  is  the  principal  industry,  and  last  year  there 
was  shipped  from  here  twenty  million  pounds  of  halibut. 

From  here  we  passed  on  to  Shecan,  a  small  Indian 
village  also  on  Prince  of  Wales  Island.  Here  I  saw  the 
only  really  pretty  Indian  maiden  that  I  have  ever  seen. 
She  had  been  a  cripple  from  childhood  and  was  entirely 

unable  to  walk. 

From  here  we  proceeded  without  further  stop  to  bitka. 

which  was  then  the  capital  of  Alaska. 

39 


CHAPTER    IV. 

Sitka  and  Yakutat. 

As  you  approach  Sitka  the  oriental  dome  of  the  Greek 
Cathedral,  the  court  house,  Marine  Barracks  and  other 
Government  buildings,  all  coming  in  view  at  once,  you 
get  the  impression  that  it  is  a  much  larger  place  than  it 
really  is. 

As  the  administrative  seat  and  centre  of  Russian  cul- 
ture in  America,  Sitka  has  a  most  interesting  history.  It 
was  a  place  of  much  importance  a  hundred  years  ago. 
From  here  the  Russian  did  a  considerable  trade  with 
China  and  with  the  Spaniards  to  the  south,  and  most  of 
the  bells  in  the  old  missions  of  California  were  cast  in  this 
little  city  on  Baronoff  Island.  However,  long  before  the 
time  of  my  visit  it  had  much  declined  in  importance,  but 
was  still  by  far  the  most  interesting  place  in  all  Alaska. 

If  you  have  ever  been  penned  up  on  a  little  coastwise 
schooner  for  twenty  days  and  are  a  reasonably  decent 
person,  it  is  not  hard  to  guess  what  your  first  performance 
was  upon  going  ashore.  I  accordingly  made  inquiry  at 
once  as  to  where  those  celebrated  Russian  baths  were  that 
I  had  heard  so  much  about  in  connection  with  Sitka. 
This  inquiry  was  the  more  diligently  made  by  reason  of 
the  prospects  that  this  would  be  my  winter's  bath,  which 
was  in  fact  true,  though  I  do  not  know  that  any  other 
member  of  the  party  profited  by  this  last  opportunity. 
Indeed,  later  when  speaking  of  this  matter  in  the  woods, 
George  seriously  maintained  that  bathing  was  a  symptom 


40 


SITKA  AND  YAKUTAT 

of  degeneracy ;  that  it  took  certain  oils  and  animal  matter 
out  of  the  skin,  very  necessary  for  vigor  and  endurance; 
that  the  Roman  Empire  never  commenced  to  decline  until 
luxurious  baths  were  provided  and  the  people  became 
addicted  to  this  altogether  useless  and  destructive  cus- 
tom. However  that  may  be,  I  took  this  bath  in  Sitka, 
and  have  never  felt  that  I  was  in  any  way  injured.  In 
fact,  I  liked  it  so  well  that  I  actually  took  another  one  in 
June  of  the  following  year. 

These  baths  in  Sitka  are  connected  with  private  resi- 
dences, especially  with  the  residences  of  the  Colonial  Citi- 
zens, so-called,  who  are  a  class  of  half-breeds  left  in 
America  by  the  Russians.  These  people  and  their  de- 
scendants are  found  in  small  numbers  at  several  places 
on  the  coast,  especially  at  Cook's  Inlet.  The  bath  that 
1  used  on  this  occasion  and  afterwards  in  June  consisted 
of  two  small  rooms,  and  was  entirely  separated  from  the 
residence.  One  room  is  a  dressing  room,  and  in  here  you 
also  finish  the  bath  with  a  tub  of  water.  In  the  floor  of 
the  second  room  is  built  a  large  rock  furnace,  which  is 
heated  by  logs  of  wood  from  the  outside.  When  this  is 
sufficiently  hot  you  throw  basins  of  water  upon  it  until 
the  room  becomes  packed  with  steam,  and  in  this  way 
you  get  a  very  crude  but  quite  a  good  steam  bath. 

In  Sitka  there  is  a  Presbyterian  Mission  which  main- 
tains a  large  school  for  Indian  girls.  What  to  do  with 
these  girls  when  they  finish  school  is  a  problem  not  yet 
solved,  and  their  fate  is  often  a  tragic  one  in  that  rough 
country.  Here,  too,  is  the  Shelton  Jackson  Museum, 
with  a  fine  collection  of  Alaskan  curios.  The  ruins  of 
BaronofiB's  Castle  are  still  to  be  seen,  and  I  noticed  sev- 


41 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

eral  pieces  of  ancient  artillery  that  formerly  mounted  its 
parapets.  There  is  a  very  attractive  park  and  driveway, 
or  rather  walk,  I  should  say,  for  there  is  only  one  horse 
on  the  island,  and  that  turned  out  upon  investigation  to 
be  a  government  mule. 

On  the  beach  in  front  of  the  Mission  is  pointed  out  a 
large  boulder,  whereon  it  is  said  the  beautiful  Countess 

,  spouse  of  the  last  Russian  Governor,   sat  and 

wept  when  she  heard  that  Alaska  had  in  reality  been  ceded 
to  the  United  States.  Strangely  enough,  this  rock  is 
called  "The  Blarney  Stone,"  and  good  Americans  are 
supposed  to  kick  it  as  they  pass,  which  is  rather  an  ugly 
and  ungallant  custom,  I  must  say. 

Sitka  otherwise  has  two  small  hotels,  a  court  house  and 
Federal  prison.  There  is  also  the  Greek  Orthodox  Cathe- 
dral and  several  very  large  and  ancient  log  buildings, 
curious  and  interesting  in  style.  The  Greek  Orthodox 
Cathedral  is  a  most  interesting  building,  and  has,  besides 
a  wealth  of  jeweled  "icons,"  some  ancient  Russian  lamps, 
very  valuable,  and  several  paintings,  one  of  which  I  was 
told  the  late  Mr.  J.  P.  Morgan  offered  $25,000  for.  Nor 
must  I  fail  to  note  Mt.  Edgecombe,  which  is  an  extinct 
volcano  of  extraordinary  beauty,  that  adds  much  to  the 
view  around  Sitka. 

During  the  Russian  control  Indians  were  not  per- 
mitted to  reside  within  the  city  proper,  so  there  grew  up 
and  developed  alongside  an  exclusive  Indian  quarter, 
which  is,  I  think,  one  of  the  most  unique  and  picturesque 
spots  in  America.  Baranoff  Island  is  itself  a  large  and 
valuable  island,  and  besides  being  well  watered  and  tim- 
bered, has  a  very  mild  climate.     It  is  also  well  stocked 


42 


SITKA  AND  YAKUTAT 

with  deer,  and  is  the  most  northerly  point  in  the  world 
where  this  splendid  little  animal  is  found. 

The  first  evening  I  was  here  several  men  came  running 
past  me  down  the  street  in  a  great  hurry,  almost  running 
over  me  in  their  haste.  I  turned  and  followed  at  a  lively 
pace,  thinking  that  something  exciting  was  transpiring. 
Much  to  my  surprise,  I  discovered  that  these  men  were 
prisoners  running  to  get  in  jail.  Sitka,  being  on  an 
island,  the  prisoners  are  turned  out  during  the  day,  and  if 
they  are  not  back  by  9  o'clock  they  are  locked  out,  which 
is,  in  that  climate,  a  very  serious  thing  in  winter.  So  it 
happens  that  in  Sitka  about  9  o'clock  in  the  evening  a^ 
number  of  people  excuse  themselves  and  hasten  to  get  in 
jail. 

One  morning  George  announced  that  he  had  discov- 
ered a  large  anchor  in  an  old  wreck  that  lay  across  the 
bay ;  that  it  was  the  property  of  Governor  Brady,  and  that 
he  was  going  to  borrow  it  if  possible  to  take  the  place  of 
the  one  we  had  lost  at  Mary  Island.  I  volunteered  to  go 
with  him  and  call  upon  his  Excellency  the  Governor  of  all 
Alaska.  We  both  primped  ourselves  up  somewhat  for 
this  occasion,  and  I  shall  always  remember  my  feelings 
as  I  stepped  ashore  that  morning.  I  was  dressed,  for  the 
first  time,  in  my  real  Alaska  clothing.  A  suit  of  orange- 
colored  mackinaw,  blouse  belted  and  buttoned  to  the 
throat  in  military  style.  My  moose  skin  moccasins  came 
to  the  ankles,  and  were  ornamented  around  the  top  with 
heavy  red  stitching.  Heavy  German  socks  came  up  on 
the  outside  of  the  trousers  almost  to  the  knees ;  a  fur 
cap  and  gauntlets  completed  the  outfit,  and  I  was  careful 
to  let  the  cuflFs  and  collar  of  my  dark  blue  shirt  protrude 


43 


AN   ADVENTURE  IN   ALASKA 

in  a  careless,  d  la  Rcnnick  manner.  Certainly  no  one 
would  ever  take  me  for  a  tenderfoot  now. 

It  is  curious  what  a  terror  this  word  tenderfoot  has 
to  young  men  of  the  East  when  they  first  arrive  in  the 
West.  They  affect  many  airs  designed  to  give  the  im- 
pression that  they  are  at  home,  and  generally  make  them- 
selves appear  much  rougher  and  more  uncivilized  than 
they  really  are  in  an  effort  to  avoid  its  application. 

We  called  at  the  Governor's  residence  and  were  told 
that  he  was  down  at  the  mill.  We  went  to  the  mill 
nearby,  and  found  His  Excellency  dressed  in  a  blue  suit 
of  overalls  and  shoveling  snow  from  a  pile  of  lumber. 
This  rather  surprised  me,  for  I  had  not  thought  of  that 
as  a  dignified  dress  or  seemly  exercise  for  the  Governor 
of  so  great  a  Territory, 

The  Governor  received  us  most  kindly  and  not  only 
consented  to  loan  us  the  anchor,  but  actually  went  along 
himself  and  helped  us  remove  it  to  the  ship,  which  was  no 
small  undertaking. 

I  don't  think  the  Governor  ever  saw  such  a  dandy  as 
I  was  that  morning.  He  kept  eyeing  me,  and  finally 
walked  over  to  me  and  asked  what  part  of  the  South 
I  was  from.  This  completely  staggered  me,  for  I  had 
supposed  myself  quite  effectively  disguised.  When  I  told 
him  North  Carolina,  he  said,  "I  knew  you  were  a  long 
way  from  home." 

While  in  Sitka,  as  has  been  stated  before,  George  met 
an  acquaintance,  Steve  McGee,  and  it  was  Steve  who 
selected  the  place  where  we  were  to  be  interned  for  the 
winter,  George  up  until  now  having  made  no  decision  at 
all  as  to  where  he  would  take  us.    This  Steve  was  a  squaw 


44 


SITKA  AND  YAKUTAT 

man,  and  had  for  a  year  or  two  lived  in  Yakutat,  where 
he  had  made  a  living  by  washing  the  beach  sands  in  dif- 
ferent places  around  the  bay.  I  might  explain  here  that 
there  are  a  number  of  such  men  scattered  along  the  coast 
of  Alaska  who  are  able  with  a  pan  during  the  summer 
to  take  out  enough  gold  dust  from  the  sands  on  the  beach 
to  support  themselves  in  idleness  during  the  winter.  These 
men  are  always  squaw  men,  and  often  live  in  little 
schooners,  in  which  they  float  from  place  to  place.  Steve, 
however,  had  a  little  house  in  Yakutat,  and  his  squaw 
was  a  graduate  of  the  Mission  School  at  Sitka. 

Steve,  as  of  course  can  be  understood,  was  an  outcast 
from  society,  and  was  very  much  like  George  in  his 
taste  and  desires  in  life.  He  joined  us  at  Sitka,  and 
during  the  following  spring  went  up  on  the  Valdez 
glacier,  where  he  shot  a  woman  and  was  himself  promptly 
hanged  by  a  band  of  infuriated  miners. 

We  left  Sitka  November  24th,  and  that  night  George 
volunteered  us  the  first  information  we  had  as  to  where 
we  were  going.  He  produced  a  small  map  of  Alaska  and 
pointed  out  a  spot  between  the  headwaters  of  the  Copper 
and  Alsek  rivers.  Here,  he  said,  was  the  promised  land. 
He  explained  that  from  Yakutat  his  route  extended  over 
a  dead  glacier  into  the  Alsek  Valley,  thence  up  the  frozen 
stream  to  the  property  in  question.  George  was  very 
friendly  and  communicative  that  night,  and  we  all  went 
to  bed  in  high  spirits  and  very  confident  of  our  success. 
Jack  and  I  even  began  to  make  some  plans  as  to  how  we 
ought  to  live  now  in  this  changed  state. 

The  next  morning  we  were  off  what  is  known  as  the 
Fairweather   Sealing   Grounds,    this   being   the   locality 


45 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

where  the  Russians  used  to  make  their  greatest  catch  of 
seals  and  sea  otter  in  the  early  days  before  the  discovery 
of  the  wonderful  Seal  Islands  by  Prelylon  in  1786.  A 
strong  gale  was  blowing,  and  our  little  ship  labored 
heavily  all  day.  The  coast  line  had  taken  on  a  much  more 
decided  Arctic  appearance,  and  the  Fairweather  range  of 
mountains  remained  on  our  starboard  side  all  day,  Mt. 
Fairweather  itself,  15.000  feet  high,  standing  out  like  a 
giant  statue  and  glorious  in  a  new  mantle  of  dazzling 
snow. 

On  the  morning  of  the  third  day  we  entered  Yakutat 
Bay,  which  is  a  very  large  and  comfortable  harbor,  with 
numerous  islands  and  smaller  bays,  and  after  rounding  a 
second  cape  came  up  to  the  town  of  Yakutat,  some  two 
hundred  and  fifty  miles  from  Sitka. 

Here  we  lay  for  several  days,  while  George  perfected 
his  plans  for  our  internment.  Finally  he  decided  to  go  up 
to  the  head  of  the  glacier  over  which  we  were  to  cross 
and  to  examine  the  locality  himself  before  putting  us 
ashore,  which  seemed  wise,  since  George  had  never  been 
in  that  locality  before.  He  explained  that  he  wanted  to 
select  the  best  place  to  unload  our  supplies,  and  especially 
wanted  to  see  the  condition  of  the  glacier  and  if  any 
crevasses  had  appeared  on  its  surface  since  he  crossed  it 
last.  He  made  this  trip  in  a  whaleboat,  and  was  accom- 
panied by  Tom  and  Steve.  While  George  is  away  on  this 
trip  I  will  describe  Yakutat  and  its  locality,  for  in  this 
vicinity  transpired  most  of  the  unrelated  portion  of  this 
narrative. 

Few  people,  I  suppose,  have  ever  heard  of  Yakutat; 
certainly  I  never  did  until  George  mentioned  it  the  night 

46 


SITKA  AND  YAKUTAT 

after  leaving  Sitka.  If  a  person  has  to  be  buried  alive, 
there  is  no  more  majestic  place  in  the  world  for  that  pur- 
pose than  here.  Across  the  bay  and  in  front  of  the  town, 
though  some  fifteen  miles  away,  is  the  great  Malaspina 
Glacier,  the  largest  glacier  on  the  American  continent.  It 
contains  about  two  hundred  and  fifty  square  miles  of  solid 
ice,  and  is  larger  in  area  than  the  land  surface  of  the 
State  of  Rhode  Island. 

A  glacier  is  one  of  the  great  wonders  of  nature,  and  a 
large  portion  of  the  topography  and  present  geographic 
arrangements  of  this  world  can  be  traced  to  their  work. 
To  us  ordinary  people  ice  is  a  solid ;  to  the  scientists,  how- 
ever, it  is  a  fluid,  and  to  this  fact  is  due  the  action  of 
glaciers  in  grinding  down  great  mountain  systems  and 
building  up  great  areas  of  bench  lands.  Here  in  these 
mountains  you  can  actually  see  them  at  work.  The 
Malaspina  glacier  is  fed  by  an  extensive  network  of 
tributaries  or  glacier  arms  that  extend  through  all  the 
valleys  for  many  miles.  The  pressure  of  these  immense 
volumes  accelerates  the  flow,  which  is  irregular  and  af- 
fected by  many  things,  so  that  a  bench  glacier  like  the 
Malaspina  may  be  flowing  in  many  directions  at  the  same 
time,  forming  at  times  ranges  of  hills  and  valleys  on  its 
own  surface  of  great  extent.  This  motion  is  often  accom- 
panied by  deep  subterranean  rumblings  and  noises,  and 
sometimes  by  violent  breaks  and  great  noises  on  the  sur- 
face that  are  terrifying  and  sound  like  artillery  practice. 

When  a  glacier  or  one  of  its  branches  becomes  de- 
prived through  some  change  in  topography  or  climate  of 
its  source  of  supply,  it  is  said  to  be  dead — that  is,  inactive. 
Such  a  glacier  then  slowly  melts  away  and  recedes  in  the 


47 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

direction  of  its  summit  or  active  part.  As  it  recedes  or 
melts  away  it  drops  whatever  it  contains  in  its  bosom, 
and  this  path,  if  above  the  surface  of  the  water,  becomes 
what  is  known  as  a  moraine.  These  moraines  are  im- 
mensely curious  as  well  as  of  great  interest  to  geologists. 
On  the  north  side  of  the  Malaspina  stands  Mt.  St.  Elias, 
1 8, 1 00  feet  high,  and,  at  the  time  I  was  there,  it  was  sup- 
posed to  be  the  highest  point  in  America.  However,  a 
more  recent  survey  has  given  that  honor  to  Mt.  McKinley, 
which  is  more  than  20,000  feet  high. 

St.  Elias  is  shaped  much  like  a  sharp  pyramid,  only  it 
has  a  great  piece  broken  out  of  it  near  the  top.  As  to  who 
broke  it,  I  cannot  for  a  certainty  say,  but  the  Indians  say 
that  Tanhow,  a  turbulent  spirit  that  once  lived  there- 
abouts, broke  it  out  and  threw  it  at  his  wife.  I  should 
say  that  it  was  a  dangerous  thing  to  throw  even  at  one's 
wife,  for  that  little  handful  must  have  been  several  thou- 
sand acres.  Tanhow  is  also  held  to  be  responsible  for  a 
number  of  other  freakish  things  that  are  seen  in  this 
locality. 

St.  Elias  is,  of  course,  always  covered  with  snow,  is 
dazzling  white,  and  in  clear  weather  can  be  seen  for  two 
hundred  and  fifty  miles  at  sea. 

Extending  east  from  St.  Elias  is  the  St.  Elias  range 
of  mountains,  which  extends  to  Fairweather.  It  con- 
sists of  a  number  of  ranges,  parallel  to  each  other,  and 
contains  many  fine  peaks,  such  as  Mt.  Vancouver,  15.000 
feet  high,  and  Mt.  Hobbard,  10,000  feet  high.  This  is 
the  frame  in  which  Yakutat  sits,  the  town  itself  being 
on  the  bench  land  that  extends  along  the  coast,  and  is 
surrounded  by  dense  forests  of  spruce  fir  and  hemlock. 

48 


SITKA  AND  YAKUTAT 

Yakutat  has  never  been  a  place  of  any  importance, 
though  now  I  beHeve  one  of  the  largest  canneries  in  the 
country  is  there.  The  Indians  of  this  locality  were 
always  of  very  low  order  and  almost  entirely  fish 
eaters.  The  Russians  found  them  troublesome  and  not 
worth  while  to  subdue.  In  1802  the  Russian  garrison  of 
one  hundred  men  was  massacred,  and  about  the  same 
time  a  large  party  of  Russians  traveling  in  three  hun- 
dred canoes  was  attacked  off  Yiakutat  Bay  and  destroyed 
to  a  man.  The  Russians  then  destroyed  the  place  and 
abandoned  it  after  erecting  a  great  cross  over  the  graves 
of  their  comrades,  which  can  be  seen  to  this  day  as  you 
enter  the  harbor. 

Yakutat,  as  I  found  it,  consisted  of  about  fifty  shacks 
and  buildings,  very  irregularly  placed  along  the  beach. 
The  natives  number,  I  believe,  about  250  and  are  quite 
far  from  being  civilized. 

Though  there  has  been  a  Swedish  Mission  here  for 
about  ten  years,  these  Indians  still  tie  up  their  witches, 
keep  certain  of  their  young  girls  in  sweat  boxes  and 
practise  all  manner  of  barbarities,  some  hideous  and  re- 
volting. They  still  cling  mostly  to  their  own  laws  and 
customs,  are  a  poor  lot  physically,  very  superstitious  and 
all  covered  with  insects.  The  first  night  we  were  here  I 
was  awakened  in  the  early  morn  by  the  screams  and  cries 
of  many  children.  I  was  so  disturbed  and  curious  that  I 
slipped  on  some  clothes  and  went  on  deck.  It  was  barely 
dawn,  but  I  could  discern  through  the  light  many  chil- 
dren bathing  and  splashing  in  the  water  along  the  shore. 
Their  screams  were  dreadful,  and  I  wondered  what  they 
were  doing  there,  for  the  thermometer  was  about  ten  de- 


49 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

grees  above  zero.  I  learned  that  it  is  customary  to  often 
subject  the  small  children  to  this  treatment,  the  men  driv- 
ing them  into  the  water  with  sticks  and  standing  on  the 
shore  to  see  that  they  remained  out  for  an  allotted  time, 
the  idea  being  to  toughen  them  to  hardships  and  exposure, 
thus  making  stronger  men  and  women  of  them.  As  can 
be  imagined,  the  result  is  many  deaths  from  pneumonia 
and  other  pulmonary  troubles.  Their  houses  are  mostly 
made  of  slabs  or  poles.  In  the  centre  of  the  dirt  floor 
is  a  wood  fire,  the  smoke  of  which  is  supposed  to  go  out 
an  opening  in  the  top.  This,  however,  is  only  a  supposi- 
tion, for  the  smoke  never  goes  out  this  opening,  but  all 
remains  below  to  torture  you,  and  often  you  cannot  rec- 
ognize a  person  quite  near  you  for  the  smoke. 

The  occupants  sleep  and  eat  around  this  fire  on  piles 
of  skins  or  filthy  rags,  while  the  floor  is  littered  with 
bones  and  garbage  of  every  description.  These  houses 
are  called  "bribaris,"  and  some  of  them  are  very  large. 

One  evening  a  "potlatch"  was  given  in  honor  of  our 
arrival.  A  "potlatch"  is  an  entertainment,  the  word  also 
being  used  in  other  sense,  as  "to  give"  or  "compliment." 
This  particular  affair  was  given  in  quite  a  large  hut  or 
"bribary,"  and  was  attended,  I  suppose,  by  all  the  belles 
and  matrons  of  the  place.  Certainly  a  goodly  number 
arrived,  and  all  seemed  to  have  one  or  more  "papoose," 
tightly  bandaged  up  in  rags,  which  they  carelessly  tossed 
in  a  heap  in  one  corner  of  the  room,  like  so  many  bun- 
dles of  trash  and  all  on  top  of  each  other.  I  wondered 
how  they  could  breathe. 

These  little  things,  however,  never  uttered  a  sound  dur- 
ing the  entertainment.    A  girl  with  a  stick  was  stationed 


50 


SITKA  AND  YAKUTAT 

over  them  to  prevent  any  being  devoured  by  dogs,  a 
shocking  horror  not  infrequently  occurring,  I  was  told. 

"Papoose"  deposited,  the  squaws  then  mingled  very 
freely  with  the  men,  and  some  kind  of  a  mournful  dance 
was  started. 

There  was  nothing  whatever  attractive  about  any  of 
this,  so  I  left  early,  being,  in  fact,  afraid  to  sit  down  or 
to  touch  anything  at  all. 

These  Indians  are  expert  fishermen,  and  dig  out  the 
most  beautiful  canoes  on  the  coast.  This  seems  to  be 
their  only  real  art,  for  their  totems  are  much  inferior  to 
what  I  saw  at  Sitka  and  Ketchekan.  They  commit  all 
manner  of  crimes  among  themselves,  and  while  I  was 
there  a  young  Indian  killed  his  father  without  any  provo- 
cation whatever,  and,  cutting  his  stomach  open,  filled  it 
with  rocks  and  sank  the  body  in  a  lake.  For  this  he  had 
most  of  his  canoes  and  blankets  taken  from  him  and  had 
to  work  for  the  chief  for  a  length  of  time. 

The  chief,  who  is  called  King  George,  does  not  appear 
much  superior  to  his  subjects,  but  his  son,  who  is  called 
the  Duke  of  York,  seems  to  be  a  very  strong  and  athletic 
man. 

King  George,  who  is  recognized  by  our  government  and 
receives  an  annuity  of  $120  a  year,  was  once  taken  to 
Portland  at  the  expense  of  the  government  and  forced  to 
witness  the  hanging  of  some  of  his  subjects  who  had 
committed  some  barbarous  murders,  the  idea  being  that 
it  would  have  a  wholesome  effect  upon  him  and  the  others 
of  his  tribe  if  he  actually  saw  what  the  "Great  Boston 
Con"*  in  Washington  would  do  when  angry.     George 

♦American  white  man. 

51 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

never  tires  of  telling  strangers  of  this  trip.  The  hanging 
apparently  did  not  impress  him  at  all,  but  what  interested 
him  most  was  an  elevator,  and  I  was  told  that  it  was 
almost  impossible  to  get  him  out  of  one. 

Among  other  happenings  on  this  marvelous  trip 
George  was  made  the  subject  of  a  cruel  joke.  He  was 
told  to  take  down  the  receiver  of  a  telephone  and  put  it 
to  his  ear,  that  he  could  talk  to  the  old  chief  who  had 
been  dead  for  many  years.  He  did  so,  and  so  well  did' 
the  person  at  the  other  end  act  his  part  that  the  scene 
became  most  pathetic,  and  I  was  told  that  those  present 
were  really  overcome  at  George's  earnestness  and  the 
effect  it  had  upon  him. 

Of  the  white  people  here,  we  found  a  Swedish  Mission 
conducted  by  a  Mr.  Johnson  and  his  wife,  assisted  by  a 
young  Swedish  woman.  There  are  also  two  other  white 
men  who  reside  here,  both  traders.  One,  a  Mr.  Beasley,  I 
saw  very  little  of,  but  the  other,  Mr.  Johnson,  I  saw  a 
good  deal  of  at  this  time,  and  upon  my  return  here  in  the 
spring.  Mr.  Johnson  was  a  very  jovial  and  big-hearted 
fellow  and  had  the  capacity  of  making  you  laugh  and 
keeping  you  in  good  spirits  all  the  time.  He  had  been 
here  for  about  twenty  years,  and  of  course  knew  all  about 
this  place,  but  to  my  .surprise  knew  nothing  whatever 
about  the  surrounding  country. 

There  was  also  here  at  this  time  a  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Krow- 
ley,  who  were  on  their  honeymoon.  Mrs.  Krowley  was 
about  fifty  years  of  age,  an  aggressive,  self-opinionated, 
stupid  person,  possessed  of  almost  everything  that  men  dis- 
like in  women — of  the  poison  ivy  rather  than  the  clinging 
vine  stock.     She  had  been  directed  here  by  a  clairvoyant, 


52 


SITKA  AND  YAKUTAT 

who  had  imparted  to  her  the  exact  spot  near  Mt.  St.  EHas 
where  her  fortune  awaited  her.  Her  husband,  a  most 
insignificant  httle  mouse  of  a  man,  had  been  required  to 
sell  his  belongings  and  trail  along  with  her.  With  them 
was  a  man  named  Brooks,  a  Missouri  farmhand,  who  had 
drifted  into  Yakutat  in  some  way  and,  being  stranded, 
had  taken  up  with  this  pair.  The  three  had  been  working 
some  of  the  beach  sands  around  the  bay,  hoping  in  this 
way  to  secure  enough  to  go  up  to  where  Mrs.  Krowley's 
fortune  lay.  In  this,  however,  they  had  not  been  success- 
ful, and  were  all  now  practically  stranded. 

We  took  our  dogs  ashore  here  and  gave  them  some 
exercise,  and  thereby  was  precipitated  one  of  the  greatest 
dog  fights  I  suppose  that  ever  occurred.  They  were  no 
sooner  turned  loose  on  the  beach  than  the  Indian  dogs 
came  down  upon  them  in  swarms  and  attacked  them  sav- 
agely. I  am  sure  that  more  than  a  hundred  Indian  dogs 
participated  in  this  fight.  Our  dogs  were  very  strong, 
especially  two  mastiffs  and  a  St.  Bernard.  These  were 
equal  to  any  number  of  the  little,  half-starved  Indian 
dogs,  that  appeared  to  be  mostly  fox.  For  some  time  the 
battle  raged  terribly,  and  the  whole  village  was  aroused 
by  the  uproar  and  turned  out  in  an  effort  to  put  a  stop  to 
it.  At  times  some  of  our  dogs  would  be  entirely  covered 
up  by  the  Indian  dogs,  and  would  look  like  a  big  ball  of 
mad  dogs  rolling  along  the  beach.  After  some  time  we 
separated  them  and,  securing  our  dogs,  took  them  back 
to  the  ship.  The  casualties  among  the  Indian  dogs  were 
large.  The  Indians  demanded  pay  for  these  dead  dogs, 
which  we  refused,  and  the  matter  caused  some  bad  feeling 
between  the  Indians  and  ourselves.    In  every  Indian  vil- 


53 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

lage  there  is  a  swarm  of  half-starved  dogs.  These  dogs 
belong  to  no  one,  but  if  you  kill  one,  an  owner  soon  ap- 
pears and  demands  pay.  Our  own  dogs  suffered  very 
little  in  this  battle,  and  the  large  ones  not  at  all. 

There  is  one  other  thing  that  I  must  refer  to  in  con- 
nection with  Yakutat — that  is  the  vast  quantities  of  fish 
that  are  to  be  found  and  taken  in  these  waters.  It  is 
practically  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  quantity  of  sal- 
mon, smelts  and  herring  that  can  be  taken  during  the 
season.  This  is  not  only  true  of  Yakutat  Bay,  but  of  all 
the  bays  and  streams  of  the  north  Pacific.  In  the  little 
lagoons  and  inlets  at  certain  stages  of  the  tide  they  can 
be  raked  out  with  a  rake,  just  as  many  as  you  desire,  and 
they  form  a  very  important  part  of  the  food  of  the  bear 
and  fox,  who  have  no  trouble  in  catching  them.  Several 
times  Jack  and  I  went  over  to  the  little  lagoon  near  Yaku- 
tat when  the  tide  was  low  and  raked  out  in  a  minute  as 
many  as  we  wished.  We  also  saw  numbers  of  Indian 
dogs  catching  them  and  devouring  them  on  the  beach. 


54 


CHAPTER  V. 
In  the  Woods. 

Upon  George's  return,  he  reported  everything  in  fine 
condition ;  the  glacier  had  been  visited  and  found  entirely 
free  from  crevasses.  Accordingly,  we  got  under  way  and 
proceeded  up  Enchantment  Bay.  This  is  a  "fjord"  or 
arm  of  the  sea  that  extends  up  into  the  mountains  and 
foothills  for  about  forty  miles.  It  empties  into  Yakutat 
Bay  over  by  the  Malaspina,  and,  while  it  is  forty  or  fifty 
miles  long,  it  bends  in  a  direction  so  that  its  head  is  only 
about  twenty-five  miles  overland  from  Yakutat.  It  is 
one  of  the  hundreds  of  similar  bays  or  canals,  as  they  are 
called,  that  are  characteristic  of  this  entire  coast,  and 
also  of  the  coast  of  Norway.  Enchantment  Bay  is  a  gem 
and  lovely  beyond  description.  It  is  from  one-quarter  to 
one-half  mile  in  width,  with  occasional  small  islands  or 
rocks,  and  with  banks  so  high  and  vertical  that  there  are 
no  landing  places.  On  the  left  bank  ascending  glaciers 
break  in  occasionally.  The  banks  and  mountains  on  each 
side  are  so  steep  and  the  place  so  narrow  that  we  had 
hardly  any  light  at  this  season  of  the  year,  and  the  entire 
day  was  like  twilight,  which  gave  everything  a  curious 
but  lovely  appearance. 

At  night  we  tied  up  to  some  trees  that  hung  over  a 
cliff,  for  no  steamer  had  ever  been  in  this  place  before. 
We  were  the  first  that  ever  burst  upon  that  silent  sea,  and 
had  to  proceed  with  caution. 

About  noon  of  the  second  day  we  arrived  at  the  head  of 


55 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

the  bay,  where  the  banks  are  low  and  comfortable  for 
landing-.  Here  we  unloaded  our  supplies  in  the  forest 
and  on  the  banks  of  a  giant  moraine.  We  were  assisted 
in  this  by  a  number  of  Indians  brought  along  from  Yaku- 
tat  for  that  purpose,  among  whom  I  recall  was  "His 
Grace,"  the  Duke  of  York. 

The  Augusta  then  turned  her  heels,  gave  us  three  loud 
whistles  and  started  on  her  long  trip  back  to  Seattle.  It 
was  a  queer  feeling  that  came  over  us  then,  at  least  over 
me,  for  this  little  ship  was  our  last  tie  to  civilization  and 
the  great  world  behind.  All,  I  suppose,  sent  letters  back 
by  the  Augusta,  and  certainly  George  made  a  report  to 
Rennick  as  to  the  progress  of  the  matter  and  enclosed  a 
rough  chart  of  Enchantment  Bay  and  the  environs  of  our 
tomb.  We  retained,  from  the  Augusta,  a  good  boat  and 
two  pairs  of  oars  for  the  benefit  of  the  corps  and  for  use 
on  the  River  Styx  perhaps,  should  the  ferryman  be  indis- 
posed or  be  otherwise  engaged. 

We  at  once  started  to  arrange  our  camp,  which  we  did 
very  speedily.  We  had  three  tents,  one  for  ourselves, 
one  for  the  kitchen  and  one  for  the  dogs.  Romeo  was 
appointed  cook,  and  an  excellent  one  he  was,  too,  having 
been  a  cook  in  the  Army.  Tents  pitched  and  stoves  up, 
we  then  covered  the  floor  with  hemlock  bows.  On  these 
we  placed  our  sleeping  bags  and  blankets  in  two  rows, 
feet  to  the  centre. 

We  were  entirely  comfortable,  and  had  an  abundance  of 
everything.  Indeed,  we  had  so  much  food  and  so  many 
extra  tools  of  every  description  that  we  very  soon  took 
no  pains  to  economize  in  anything. 

Edwards  was  now  one  of  us,  and  placed  his  sleeping 

56 


IN  THE  WOODS 

bag  opposite  George.  George,  however,  was  entirely  in 
charge,  and  Edwards,  in  a  way,  a  guest  until  George 
performed  Rennick's  part  of  the  contract  and  located  us 
on  that  "pay  dirt."  However,  Edwards  worked  just  as 
any  of  us,  though  I  understood  he  was  not  required  to  do 
so.    He  proved  to  be  one  of  the  best  workers  in  the  camp. 

As  soon  as  the  Augusta  was  out  of  sight,  George 
seemed  to  lose  his  energy.  We  spent  several  days  making 
ourselves  more  comfortable,  and  explored  a  bit  of  the  for- 
est that  surrounded  us,  in  which  no  white  man  had  ever 
been  before.  Finally  George  went  forward  and  selected  a 
sight  for  our  second  camp.  This  camp  was  about  five 
miles  away,  and  was  at  the  foot  of  a  glacier.  In  order  to 
reach  it,  however,  we  had  to  cross  the  moraine,  which 
added  immensely  to  our  labor. 

We  all  worked  like  slaves  on  this  move,  and  after  some 
trouble  succeeded  in  breaking  in  our  dogs  to  harness  very 
well  indeed ;  and  it  is  surprising  what  they  can  do.  Since 
then  I  have  loved  dogs  better  than  men,  I  fear ;  certainly 
better  than  some  of  the  men  I  was  with. 

The  companionship  of  dogs  is  one  of  the  finest  things 
given  to  man,  and  my  dog  Prince  certainly  excelled  this 
man  George  in  all  the  finer  traits  of  character,  and  was 
in  truth  much  more  of  a  Christian  and  gentleman  besides. 

We  found  our  ten  tons  of  supplies  such  an  immense 
burden  and  the  trail  over  the  moraine  so  very  rough  that 
it  was  after  Christmas  before  we  had  entirely  moved  up 
to  the  Glacier  camp.  Here  we  spent  most  of  January, 
entirely  inactive.  We  had  become  suspicious  and  were 
now  finally  convinced  while  here  that  George,  for  some 
reason,  was  playing  a  part.     We  could  not  understand  it. 


57 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

but  it  was  quite  plain  that  George  had  no  real  intention  of 
taking  us  forward  and  knew  nothing  whatever  about  the 
country. 

The  party,  too,  was  by  now  quite  plainly  divided  into 
groups  or  alliances  that  made  our  situation  more  hope- 
less, besides  very  unpleasant  and  dangerous  as  well.  From 
the  beginning  Romeo,  Jess  and  I  stood  together,  not  in  an 
aggressive  way,  but  plain  enough  to  be  seen.  Tom  had 
attached  himself  to  George,  and  we  all  knew  that  he  could 
be  depended  upon  to  do  George's  bidding  in  anything. 

Brooks  remained  neutral,  alone  and  sullen,  with  more 
friendship  for  Jess,  we  thought,  than  for  any  other  mem- 
ber of  the  party.  Jimmy  appeared  also  to  be  neutral,  but, 
being  entirely  worthless  and  without  decision  of  any  kind, 
could  not  be  depended  upon.  Edwards  was  entirely  neu- 
tral, held  himself  somewhat  aloof  from  all  of  us,  as  was 
proper  under  the  circumstances.  He  was  indeed  in  a 
most  difficult  and  trying  position — in  fact,  in  a  position 
of  real  danger,  and  he  conducted  himself  like  a  man  all 
through. 

Jack  had  shown  a  fondness  for  me,  but,  having  had 
some  words  with  George  shortly  after  we  landed,  he 
walked  of¥  and  abandoned  the  party.  He  endeavored  to 
reach  Yakutat  overland,  but  became  lost  and  snow-blind 
in  the  forest,  as  we  learned  afterwards,  and  would  have 
perished  but  for  the  fact  that  some  Indians  on  a  hunting 
trip  chanced  upon  him  and  took  him  in.  He  recovered 
and  was  taken  down  to  San  Francisco  on  a  little  fishing 
schooner  that  happened  to  come  in  to  secure  some  water. 
If  he  had  remained  with  the  party,  he  would  have  be- 
longed to  my  group. 

58 


IN   THJE   WOODS 

George  made  every  effort  to  break  into  our  "entente." 
He  would  talk  to  us  individually  and  cunningly,  try  to 
arouse  us  against  Edwards  or  against  each  other.  It  did 
not  work,  and  this  alignment  remained  throughout  the. 
winter,  and  very  well  it  did,  for  otherwise  there  would 
have  been  murder  in  our  camp  that  winter.  As  it  was, 
the  situation  was  dangerous  enough;  everyone  realized 
that.  No  one  spoke  or  said  a  word  about  any  member  of 
the  party,  especially  nothing  was  said  about  our  pros- 
pects or  where  we  were  going.  Nothing  had  been  agreed 
to  on  this  point,  but  it  was  in  the  atmosphere  and  every- 
one felt  it  as  distinctly  as  they  could  see  the  mountains 
around  us.  Any  trouble  started  in  that  camp  would  have 
been  most  serious.  We  had  at  least  three  of  the  most 
desperate  and  dangerous  men  that  could  be  found — men 
that  thought  nothing  of  murder,  and  we  were  hundreds  of 
miles  from  any  civilization  or  law  of  any  kind.  This  was 
perfectly  well  understood  by  all  of  us,  and  it  was  felt 
to  be  an  excellent  time  to  mind  your  own  business,  "speak 
with  a  soft  voice  and  carry  a  big  stick." 

I  have  always  believed  that  if  George  could  have  at- 
tached Jess  or  Brooks  to  himself,  Edwards  would  have 
certainly  been  "accidentally"  killed,  or  would  have  mys- 
teriously disappeared,  and  I  am  sure  that  nothing  but  this 
nice  balance  of  power  prevented  some  such  horrible  trag- 
edy. In  fact,  George  even  approached  me,  in  a  vague 
way,  about  the  advisability  of  something  of  this  kind  hap- 
pening to  Edwards.  Thank  God,  young  as  I  was.  he  in- 
stantly saw  my  resentment  and  concern.  I  never  men- 
tioned this  to  a  soul,  for  the  situation  would  not  have 
stood  any  discussion  at  all.     Edwards,  too,  I  am  quite 

59 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

sure,  understood  and  felt  his  situation  accurately,  and  in 
anything  like  fair  play  would  have  rendered  a  good  ac- 
count of  himself.  He  knew,  too,  that  the  slightest  inter- 
ference or  assumption  of  authority  on  his  part  would  have 
caused  an  immediate  explosion. 

There  was  one  other  thing  that  I  thought  at  the  time 
had  some  effect  on  this  ticklish  situation,  and,  trifling  as 
it  may  appear,  there  were  some  indications  that  Brooks, 
at  least,  was  affected  by  it.  This  seemed  to  have  been 
caused  by  my  having  been  seen  with  Mr.  Kidder  several 
times  in  Seattle.  Mr.  Kidder  was  a  strikingly  handsome 
and  distinguished-looking  man;  he  was  "biled  shirt"  all 
over  to  these  men,  and  the  impression  prevailed  that  I 
was  not  at  all  what  I  pretended  to  be.  The  inference  was 
that  I  was  a  son  of  a  millionaire,  or  of  some  nota- 
ble, out  on  a  lark,  and  if  anything  ugly  happened,  there 
would  be  no  limit  of  means  and  influence  available  to 
show  the  thing  up.  I  do  not  know  to  what  extent  this 
idea  prevailed,  but  I  do  know  it  was  there,  and  that  Jess, 
without  speaking  to  me,  encouraged  it,  and  that  I,  under 
the  circumstances,  was  too  modest  for  anything. 

Under  these  conditions,  the  atmosphere  in  the  tent  was 
always  charged.  Sometimes  for  days  George  would  lie 
on  his  blankets  and  speak  not  a  word  to  anyone.  At  such 
times  he  was  a  most  dreadful-looking  person.  At  other 
times  he  would  talk  very  friendly,  and  sometimes  we  all 
would  talk  amiably  together,  but  never  about  the  object 
of  our  trip. 

On  one  occasion,  I  recall,  we  were  all  talking  in  the 
tent  in  one  of  our  friendly  moods.  George  was  telling 
us  about  Alaska,  the  Indians,  the  animal  life  and  the 

60 


IN  THE  WOODS 

great  resources,  and,  though  he  knew  nothing  whatever 
about  these  things,  neither  did  we,  so  he  did  not  mind 
talking.  Finally  I  asked  him  if  there  were  any  toads  in 
Alaska.  No,  there  were  no  toads  in  Alaska.  None  what- 
ever. Queen  Charlotte  Island  was  the  highest  point  on 
the  coast  where  anything  at  all  like  a  toad  had  ever  been 
found,  and  these  were  in  fact  not  toads  at  all,  but  a 
curious  kind  of  rock  frog.  Just  then  I  raised  the  foot  of 
my  sleeping  bag,  and  out  jumped  a  fine  big  toad  frog. 
Everybody  laughed,  even  George,  and  this  was  the  only 
laugh  heard  in  that  camp  during  that  long,  long  winter, 
George  never  knew  that  I  had  been  thawing  out  that  toad 
and  feeding  him  for  a  week  in  order  to  get  him  in  good 
hopping  trim. 

Returning  to  Camp  No.  2,  this  was  the  most  uncom- 
fortable camp  we  had.  It  was  pitched  on  a  thinly  wooded 
gravel  bed,  exactly  at  the  foot  of  a  great  mountain  and 
at  the  head, of  the  moraine  I  have  mentioned.  The  face 
of  a  huge  glacier  was  about  two  hundred  yards  away. 
For  three  weeks  the  wind  blew  a  violent  gale,  so  violent 
and  cold  as  it  came  from  the  glacier  that  nothing  could  be 
done.  We  were  confined  entirely  to  camp  during  this 
time,  and  often  had  to  turn  out  at  night  and  restrap  our 
tent  down. 

On  the  first  quiet  day  George,  Edwards  and  I  went 
out  to  explore  the  glacier  over  which  we  were  to  pass.  Be 
it  remembered  that  this  glacier  was  supposed  to  run  over 
the  mountains  here  and  to  lead  into  the  valley  of  the 
Alsek  River,  and  George  himself  was  supposed  to  have 
crossed  over  this  glacier  the  previous  fall.  This,  how- 
ever, it  was  best  not  to  recall  for  reasons  before  stated. 

61 


AN   ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

This  glacier  was  a  dead  glacier.  Its  face  was  smooth 
and  a  steep  slope  of  about  three  hundred  feet  high  and 
one-half  mile  wide.  The  ice  was  of  many  colors,  which  was 
caused,  I  supposed,  by  the  different  elements  it  had  been 
in  contact  with  and  by  the  various  degrees  of  pressure  it 
had  been  subjected  to  during  the  thousands  of  years  it  had 
been  frozen. 

Once  over  the  face,  the  ascent  was  more  gradual  and 
good  for  sleds.  There  were  no  crevasses  either,  but  many 
gentle  slopes  and  hollows.  The  mountains  on  each  side 
were  entirely  barren  of  vegetation  of  any  description. 

We  proceeded  on  about  eight  miles  around  a  bend  and 
came  to  the  summit,  which  was  about  three  thousand  feet 
above  sea  level.  Here  this  glacier  merged  with  others 
and  spread  to  the  east  and  west  and  joined  with  still  others 
as  far  as  you  could  see.  But  it  did  not  extend  in  the 
direction  of  the  Alsek,  for  in  the  way  stood  a  great  moun- 
tain range  and  beyond  them  other  ranges,  close  up,  as  far 
as  the  eye  could  see.  Among  them  all  was  a  great  net- 
work of  glaciers,  all  active  and  very  different  in  appear- 
ance from  the  little  one  we  had  ascended. 

The  surface  of  these  glaciers  was  indescribably  rough 
and  impossible  to  travel  on.  One  glance  was  enough  to 
convince  us  that  there  was  no  passing  here.  Steve  had 
selected  well.  We  would  never  cross  this  range  of  moun- 
tains, that  much  was  perfectly  sure.  They  never  had  been 
crossed,  and  have  not  to  this  day,  I  suppose,  and  they 
were  certainly  impassable  to  us  with  our  equipment  and 
morale. 

The  scene  on  this  glacier  was  wonderful  beyond  de- 
scription, and  dreadful,  too.     Nothing  was  suggestive  of 

62 


IN   THE   WOODS 

the  world  that  we  know,  and  I  had  a  frightful  feeling  that 
something  inhuman  and  supernatural  was  about. 

Upon  our  return  from  the  glacier  it  became  understood 
in  some  way  that  the  glacier  was  impassable,  though  no 
one  ever  mentioned  it.  George  went  into  a  sulk  for  some 
days  and  the  whole  party  became  morose.  The  atmos- 
phere in  the  tent  was  very  tense.  When  I  left  Seattle 
Mrs.  Francisco  gave  me  a  book.  I  took  it  merely  be- 
cause she  offered  it  to  me,  for  I  expected  to  be  very  busy 
with  my  nuggets  and  mining  property  during  the  winter 
and,  of  course,  would  have  no  time  to  read.  However,  I 
still  had  it,  so  I  began  to  read.  It  was  "The  White  Com- 
pany," by  Doyle,  and  an  excellent  book  it  is.  I  suppose 
I  read  that  book  through  twenty  times  during  the  winter, 
and  practically  knew  it  by  heart.  I  have  always  regretted 
that  I  did  not  have  a  volume  or  two  of  Shakespeare  or  a 
Bible  in  which  I  could  have  become  well  versed,  since 
there  was  nothing  to  do  during  these  long  seventeen-hour 
nights  except  read,  and  we  had  any  abundance  of  candles. 

During  the  day  I  explored  the  moraine,  which  was  ever 
a  place  of  absorbing  interest.  This  moraine  was  about 
one-half  mile  in  width  and  five  miles  long.  It  was  the 
trail  of  the  receding  glacier  that  I  have  spoken  of,  and 
resembled  nothing  so  much  as  the  bed  of  a  great  river 
that  had  suddenly  gone  dry.  To  call  it  a  moraine  was  not, 
I  believe,  entirely  correct,  for  this  word  is  used  in  a 
somewhat  broader  and  even  at  times  different  sense. 
However,  we  called  it  "The  Moraine,"  and  there  seems 
to  be  no  other  word  so  suitable.  I  have  never  seen  any 
place  in  the  world  like  it. 

With  well-defined  steep  banks,  its  bottom  was  covered 

63 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

with  great  and  small  boulders,  stone  and  pebble  of  every 
conceivable  shape  and  color,  all  dumped  and  piled  in  a 
heterogeneous  and  most  fascinating  way. 

After  a  while,  when  things  appeared  somewhat  more 
amiable  in  the  tent,  I  suggested  to  George  that  I  should 
make  a  trip  to  the  eastward  in  the  direction  of  the  Alsek 
River  and  explore  the  flat,  wooded  country  in  that  direc- 
tion. Just  east  of  us  the  mountains  seemed  to  stop 
abruptly;  either  that  or  they  turned  sharply  to  the  north. 
I  explained  to  him  that  it  might  be  entirely  possible  to 
follow  these  mountains  around  until  we  reached  the  Alsek 
River,  which  was  supposed  to  break  through  them  about 
fifty  miles  to  the  east.  Once  in  the  river  bottom,  we 
might  find  a  way  through  the  mountains  along  its  banks 
and  thus  gain  the  interior  after  all. 

He  told  me  to  go  ahead.  Accordingly,  I  left  at  day- 
break. I  had  an  axe,  a  rifle,  blanket  and  some  provisions 
and  was  accompanied  by  my  dog  Prince,  now  called 
Precious.  I  was  by  this  time  quite  expert  on  snow  shoes. 
and  otherwise  hard  as  a  rock.  I  crossed  the  moraine  and 
tramped  all  day  through  a  dense  forest  of  fir,  hemlock  and 
spruce.  The  snow  was  very  deep  (twenty  or  thirty  feet 
in  places),  but  well  frozen  and  hard  on  top.  There  is 
something  indescribably  thrilling  about  exploring  a  coun- 
try in  which  no  white  man  has  ever  been.  I  had  this 
joy,  in  a  small  way,  several  times  while  in  Alaska,  but 
felt  it  more  particularly  on  this  trip.  Who  could  tell  what 
strange  objects  I  might  discover?  A  ruined  city  maybe, 
or  some  great  tombs  of  ancient  people. 

About  dusk  I  emerged  from  the  forest  and  came  into  a 
prairie  section  where  there  were  large  fields,  clear  of  tim- 

64 


IN   THE  WOODS 

ber,  for  six  or  seven  miles.  From  here  I  got  a  good  view 
of  the  country  further  east  and  a  glorious  view  of  Mt. 
Fairweather,  its  top  like  blazing  fire  in  the  setting  sun  and 
a  long  stream  of  snow  blowing  from  its  top  also  lighted 
and  ablaze  like  the  tail  of  a  great  comet.  I  was  fascinated 
and  gazed  at  it  until  it  faded  away. 

I  otherwise  discovered  that  the  mountains  here  did  turn 
to  the  north,  but  not  so  sharply  as  I  had  hoped,  but  they 
were  of  much  lower  altitude  than  those  in  front  of  our 
camp.  I  then  dropped  back  into  the  forest  and  built  a  fire 
of  logs  next  to  a  great  stone,  and  cut  some  boughs  to  lie 
on,  and  cut  a  water  hole  in  a  stream  at  hand  and  prepared 
with  Precious  to  spend  the  long  winter  night. 

It  was  a  glorious  thing,  this  night  in  the  forest  with 
Precious.  Just  Precious,  me  and  my  soul.  I  thought  of 
many,  many  things  that  night,  the  dear  ones  at  home  and 
how  this  thing  would  ever  end.  I  slept  a  little,  wrapped 
in  my  blanket,  but  Precious  not  at  all.  He  spent  the 
whole  night  with  his  ears  cocked  over  me,  perfectly  will- 
ing to  give  his  life  in  my  defence  if  called  upon.  It  was 
a  long  night,  sixteen  hours  of  darkness,  but  the  happiest 
I  spent  in  Alaska,  I  believe. 

The  next  day  I  tramped  back  to  camp,  having  seen  no 
signs  of  animal  life  of  any  description.  I  might  add  here 
that  on  this  strip  of  bench  land  between  the  St.  Elias  range 
of  mountains  and  the  coast  there  is  very  little  game  of 
any  kind.  Occasionally  we  heard  wolves  howling  in  the 
distance;  there  were  also  some  foxes,  a  few  bears  and 
more  wolverines.  But  game  is  very  scarce.  A  few  birds 
winter  here,  mostly  eagles  and  ducks,  also  a  few  magpies 
and  ravens  on  the  coast. 


65 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

Upon  my  report  of  conditions  to  the  east,  George  de- 
cided to  move  toward  the  Alsek  by  this  route.  Accord- 
ingly, our  Camp  No.  3  was  pitched  about  halfway  through 
the  forest  that  I  had  visited. 

This  was  a  most  comfortable  camp,  and  we  were  here 
for  some  time.  We  had  by  now  lost  track  of  the  days  of 
the  week,  and  were,  in  fact,  not  sure  of  the  week.  Some 
claimed  it  was  the  first  Tuesday  in  February ;  others  that 
it  was  the  last  Friday  in  January,  and  so  on.  Romeo 
proved  some  help  in  this  matter.  He  had  a  very  heavy 
beard,  and  for  thirty  years  had  shaved  on  Saturdays  and 
Tuesdays.  Now,  since  he  was  not  shaving,  his  face 
itched  severely  on  these  days.  If  it  was  two  days  be- 
tween itches,  we  knew  it  was  Tuesday;  if  three  days,  it 
was  Saturday,  so  that  he  became  a  kind  of  human  calen- 
dar, which  we  accepted  and  he  proved  in  the  end  to  be 
correct  as  to  the  days  of  the  week.  None  of  us  had 
shaved  since  we  left  Seattle.  Our  beards  were,  of  course, 
all  over  our  faces,  and  we  were  rather  frightful  things  to 
look  at,  especially  on  the  trail,  for  the  moisture  of  the 
breath  condensing  on  the  beard  formed  icicles  and  frost 
all  around  the  mouth,  w'hich  was  not  only  hideous  to  look 
at,  but  most  uncomfortable  as  well. 

The  temperature  was  never  so  low  as  I  had  expected. 
We  had  no  thermometer,  but  I  do  not  think  it  was  often 
below  zero,  and  mostly  just  above  that  point.  We  never 
suffered  at  all  at  any  time  from  cold,  nor  did  any  of  us 
have  a  cold  or  a  cough  throughout  the  winter. 

While  at  Camp  No.  3  Jess  and  I  sank  a  little  hole  near 
a  ravine  that  came  down  from  the  mountains  and  which 
conformed  to  our  idea  of  a  gold-bearing  creek.    We  were 

66 


IN   THE   WOODS 


much  surprised  after  getting  down  several  feet  to  strike 
solid  ice.  I  afterwards  understood  that  this  was  a  very 
common  formation,  both  on  the  coast  and  on  the  inside 
of  Alaska,  where  large  areas  covered  with  thick  forest 
are  underneath  solid  ice  of  an  undetemiined  depth. 

Camp  No.  4  was  out  on  the  prairie  section  that  I  have 
mentioned,  in  a  grove  of  spruce.  This  place  looked  ex- 
actly like  an  abandoned  farm.  From  here  we  followed 
the  mountains  and  crossed  a  beautiful  little  lake  about 
three  miles  across,  and  established  Camp  No.  4  at  a  spot 
very  much  resembling  Camp  No.  3. 

It  was  now  about  the  middle  of  March,  I  think.  We 
had  worked  so  leisurely  and  shown  so  little  energy  and 
spirit  that  we  had  advanced  only  about  fifty  miles  in  about 
sixty  days.  All  knew  perfectly  well  that  the  expedition 
was  a  fraud,  yet  no  one  dared  say  so  or  refer  in  any  way 
to  any  future  plans.  From  Camp  No.  4  George  and  Tom 
went  forward  a  day's  march  to  see  if  they  could  locate 
the  Alsek  River.  They  returned  and  reported  the  river 
about  fifteen  miles  away.  A  great  river,  they  said.  The 
ice  was  breaking  up  and  going  out  in  great  floes. 

The  plan  now  was  to  build  a  boat  and  ascend  this 
river,  a  feat  about  as  easy  as  paddling  a  canoe  up  Mt.  St. 
Elias.  We  could,  of  course,  have  built  a  boat,  and  of 
large  size,  for  we  had  a  number  of  cross-cut  saws,  and 
could  have  got  out  the  timber  very  rapidly.  How- 
ever, this  river  is  not  navigable  for  any  craft  on  earth,  for 
it  flows  through  and  under  a  series  of  glaciers. 

From  Camp  No.  4  we  advanced  about  twelve  miles  and 
came  to  a  deep  and  swift-running  little  river  about  fifty 
yards   across.     Earlier  in  the   season  we   would   have 

67 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

sledded  over  this  stream  without  even  knowing  of  its 
existence.  However,  it  was  beginning  to  thaw  out  now 
in  the  lowlands  and  along  the  coast,  and  many  streams 
and  lakes  were  appearing  that  had  been  until  now  en- 
tirely concealed  from  us. 

We  established  Camp  No.  5  on  the  banks  of  this  stream. 
There  is  nothing  in  nature  so  companionable  as  a  river, 
and  Precious  and  I  were  delighted  to  be  on  its  banks  and 
to  be  able  to  get  away  from  that  beastly  crowd  in  the  tent 
and  stroll  along  its  peaceful  shores.  Besides,  there  were 
many  signs  of  coming  spring  now.  Geese  and  swan  were 
appearing  in  great  numbers,  and  then  one  day  a  little 
robin  redbreast  came  and  sang  to  me  his  song  of  home 
and  far  away,  and  whispered  back  into  my  memory  many 
things  that  made  me  sad. 

While  we  were  in  the  tent  one  day  a  rifle  shot  was 
heard.  We  all  jumped,  startled.  It  was  perfectly  plain 
what  was  in  everyone's  mind  for  a  moment,  and  a  great 
relief  came  over  us  when  it  was  seen  that  all  were  present. 
George  went  outside  and  answered  this  shot,  which  was 
propter  and  good  manners  in  the  woods,  for  be  it  under- 
stood that  whenever  you  approach  a  habitation  in  the 
woods  of  the  North,  you  must  fire  a  shot,  which  is  like 
sending  in  your  card,  so  to  speak. 

If  the  shot  is  answered,  your  host  is  in,  otherwise  you 
must  not  approach.  If  you  wish  to  enter,  you  fire  a  sec- 
ond shot,  which,  if  answered,  means  "come  in,  old  fellow; 
I  am  glad  to  see  you."  George  answered  the  second  shot, 
and  we  all  stood  around  to  see  who  would  appear.  After 
some  moments  two  men  walked  up,  who  proved  to  be  that 


68 


IN   THE   WOODS 

Mr.  Krowley  and  his  man  Brooks,  or  vice  versa,  as  it 
may  have  been,  the  same  we  had  met  at  Yakutat. 

We  all  crowded  around  for  talk  and  for  any  news  of 
the  outside  world.  It  seems  that  these  people,  supposing 
that  we  had  something  good  up  in  the  woods,  had  started 
about  the  first  of  March  to  find  us.  In  this  they  had  no 
trouble,  since,  having  landed  at  the  head  of  Enchantment 
Bay,  they  had  found  our  trail  and  camping  places  and  had 
simply  followed  us  here. 

Their  camp  was  about  a  mile  away,  and  was  presided 
over  by  the  charming  Mrs.  Krowley  in  person.  They  in- 
formed us  how  Jack  had  been  taken  into  Yakutat  by  a 
band  of  Indians  and  had  gone  down  to  "Frisco"  on  a  fish- 
ing schooner.  But  what  excited  us  most  was  the  infor- 
mation that  Spain  and  the  United  States  were  at  war. 
Nothing  as  to  the  progress  of  the  war  was  known,  except 
that  at  the  time  of  the  declaration  of  war  there  was  a 
Spanish  fleet  anchored  in  New  York  harbor,  which  had 
immediately  turned  its  guns  on  the  city,  which  was  en- 
tirely destroyed,  our  informants  said. 

This  information,  though  incorrect,  for  war  had  not 
yet  been  declared,  caused  me  to  become  very  restless,  and 
I  at  once  began  to  plan  some  escape  from  my  situation 
and  to  entertain  hopes  of  entering  the  army. 

The  Kro'wleys  moved  their  camp  up  very  near  us, 
which  was  not  pleasing  to  me,  for  I  felt  that  the  presence 
of  that  woman  rrteant  trouble.  I  was,  therefore,  more 
determined  than  ever  to  find  some  way  to  quit  the  party. 
I  knew  that  the  first  steamer  going  south  would  arrive 
at  Yakutat  about  the  first  of  June,  and  I  determined  to 
catch  that  steamer  if  possible. 

69 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

Romeo  had  been  very  unwell — in  fact,  had  broken 
down  so  that  he  could  practically  do  nothing.  I  therefore 
decided  to  approach  him  on  the  subject  of  going  out.  My 
plans  were  to  take  him  down  this  little  river  into  the 
Alsek,  then  down  the  Alsek  to  its  mouth.  From  there  we 
planned  to  walk  the  beach  to  Yakutat,  a  supposed  dis- 
tance of  about  sixty  miles.  I  went  over  the  proposition 
with  Jess,  and  invited  him  to  join  us.  He  entirely  ap- 
proved of  my  plans  as  to  Romeo,  but  decided  himself  to 
remain  with  the  party,  as  he  expressed  it,  "until  hell 
freezes  over." 

I  was  waiting  to  catch  George  in  an  amiable  mood  to 
suggest  this  plan  to  him,  when  an  incident  occurred  that 
I  have  always  thought  assisted  me  very  much  in  this 
matter. 

One  day  we  were  all  lying  in  our  tent,  comfortable 
after  supper,  when  suddenly  Mrs.  Krowley,  accompanied 
by  Mr.  Krowley  and  Brooks,  burst  through  the  flap.  Her 
hair  was  disheveled,  one  eye  was  black  as  from  a  blow 
and  her  face  was  white  with  rage.  She  advanced  rap- 
idly and,  pointing  a  finger  at  George,  said,  "That's  the 
man!"  George  was  already  on  his  feet  and  with  a  re- 
volver leveled  said,  "Get  out  of  this  tent,  damn  you!" 
Tom  also  was  on  his  feet  with  rifle  clasped.  It  was  a 
dramatic  moment,  and  I  felt  my  blood  chill.  George,  as 
he  stood  in  that  pose,  was  the  most  dreadful-looking 
thing  I  have  ever  seen.  Certainly  the  thing  we  had 
dreaded  all  winter  would  break  here  now.  I  glanced  at 
Jess  for  a  cue.  His  eyes  were  ablaze,  but  he  made  no 
move.  Fortunately,  the  Krowleys  immediately  withdrew, 
without  speaking  a  word.  Nothing  whatever  was  ever  said 


70 


IN    THE   WOODS 


by  anyone,  so  far  as  I  know,  about  this  incident.  It  would, 
indeed,  have  been  dangerous  to  have  done  so,  for  the  feel- 
ing in  our  camp  had  been  growing  worse  all  the  time. 
Personally,  of  course,  I  believe  that  George  had  committed 
an  assault  upon  that  woman,  who  had  come  over  there 
expecting  that  the  camp  would  take  her  side,  drive  George 
out  and  take  her  in.  However,  she  was  not  the  type  that 
men  wage  war  over.  She  was  no  Helen  of  Troy,  and 
there  was  no  knighthood  in  our  camp,  anyway.  So  we 
all  ignored  the  incident  out  of  indifference  and  a  positive 
fear  that  it  would  certainly  lead  to  more  serious  hap- 
penings. 

I  judged  that  this  occurrence  would  affect  George  in  a 
way  that  would  cause  him  to  be  more  favorable  to  my 
plans.  For  George,  with  all  his  wickedness,  was  no  fool. 
He  was  as  cunning  as  any  rascal  on  earth,  and  as  under- 
standing, too. 

If  Romeo  and  I  left  the  party,  he  would  be  relatively 
stronger  in  the  camp  and  at  a  time,  too,  when  he  was 
threatened  by  foes  from  without.  So  the  next  day  I  ap- 
proached him  on  the  subject. 

I  found  him  perfectly  willing  and  agreeable  to  my 
plans.  He  thought  Romeo  ought  to  be  taken  out  by  all 
means,  and  said  that  we  could  take  anything  whatever 
we  wanted  from  the  supplies  and  tools  on  hand.  This  was 
the  whole  thing,  tools  and  supplies,  so  accordingly  we 
made  plans  to  leave  at  once.  My  first  plan  was  to  build  a 
raft  and  drift  down  this  little  river  that  we  were  on  into 
the  Alsek,  thence  to  the  sea.  This,  however,  was  aban- 
doned after  I  had  almost  completed  the  raft,  because  one 
stormy  night,  as  I  lay  in  my  bag,  I  heard  the  surf  dis- 
tinctly pounding  on  the  beach,  and  realized  that  we  were 
very  much  nearer  the  sea  than  we  had  supposed. 

71 


CHAPTER  VI. 
The  Retreat. 

We  left  camp  about  the  first  of  May.  Many  little  buds 
were  about  to  break,  and  in  patches,  where  the  snow  had 
gone,  numerous  and  wonderful  wild  flowers  were  begin- 
ning to  appear. 

We  took  as  much  as  we  could  carry,  and  our  outfit 
consisted  of  two  axes,  two  rifles  with  ammunition,  two 
blankets  each,  frying  pan,  coffee  pot  and  some  pounds  of 
bacon,  hardtack,  sugar,  tea  and  other  things. 

We  said  good-bye  and  shook  hands  with  each  member 
of  the  party.  Edwards  gave  me  a  letter  of  identification 
and  stopped  me  on  the  outskirts  of  the  camp  and  said 
some  complimentary  things  to  me  that  he  did  not  wish 
the  others  to  hear,  and  entrusted  me  with  two  letters  that 
he  did  not  want  George  to  know  had  gone  forward. 
These  I  accepted  and  afterwards  took  the  pains  to  mail 
in  Sitka. 

There  is  one  thing  I  must  pass  over  rapidly  here.  That 
is  Precious.  He  was,  of  course,  not  my  dog,  but  had 
taken  up  with  me,  and  I  felt  very  deeply  about  him.  I 
considered  stealing  him  and  letting  him  take  a  chance 
with  me,  though  my  own  future  was  so  uncertain  and 
dark  at  that  time.  However,  I  finally  decided  not  to  do 
so,  which  was  well,  for  I  could  never  have  got  him 
through,  as  will  be  seen.  So  I  left  him  with  the  others, 
hard  as  it  was  to  do  so. 

We  had  only  gone  a  short  distance  before  it  became 


72 


THE  RETREAT 

apparent  that  Romeo  could  carry  hardly  any  burden, 
though,  poor  fellow,  he  was  plucky.  I  had  to  gradually 
relieve  him  of  his  load,  until  I  had  both  burdens,  which 
were  more  than  I  could  carry. 

We  managed  to  get  to  the  mouth  of  the  river  the  first 
night,  notwithstanding,  and  discovered  that  this  river 
flows  into  Dry  Bay,  a  huge  bay  when  the  tide  is  in  and 
no  bay  at  all  when  the  tide  is  out.  The  Alsek  River  also 
flows  into  this  bay. 

Here  we  spent  a  rather  uncomfortable  night.  The 
next  morning  there  were  thousands  of  hair  seals  coming 
in  with  the  tide.  The  surface  of  the  water  was  crowded 
with  their  heads  and  graceful  bodies  sporting  in  the 
water  as  far  as  the  eye  could  see.  There  are  some  Indians 
that  are  said  to  live  around  this  bay,  the  small  remnant  of 
a  tribe  that  are  not  on  good  terms  with  the  Yakutats. 
However,  I  saw  no  indications  whatever  of  them,  and  was 
relieved,  for  I  had  no  desire  to  meet  them  in  my  present 
situation. 

Romeo  being  too  weak  to  carry  anything  at  all,  I  gave 
him  a  rifle  and  started  him  up  the  beach,  while  I  would 
take  a  load  and,  going  ahead  several  miles,  put  it  down 
and  go  back  for  the  second  load.  This  was  slow.  How- 
ever, I  was  tied  down  to  the  pace  that  Romeo  could  make, 
anyway,  and  wanted  to  save  as  much  of  the  supplies  as 
possible,  for  it  was  now  evident  that  we  would  be  on  the 
way  much  longer  than  calculated. 

The  walking  on  the  beach  was  very  good,  and  the  days 
were  very  long,  so  by  keeping  it  up  late  at  night  I  hoped 
to  reach  Yakutat  in  about  five  days. 

The  third  day  out  it  rained  all  day,  and  we  had  a  most 

73 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

uncomfortable  night  as  well.  I  found  that  these  double 
trips  were  too  much  for  me,  so  I  left  behind  some  of  our 
effects  (an  axe  and  some  provisions),  but  went  very 
heavily  loaded  as  it  was.  Romeo  was  getting  rapidly 
weaker,  and  had  to  walk  with  two  sticks,  and  I  began  to 
consider  whether  or  not  I  should  take  him  back  to  camp. 

We  proceeded  on  in  the  rain  until  one  evening  we 
came  to  a  good  sized  stream,  and  going  up  this  stream  a 
short  distance  to  discover  a  crossing,  we  found  a  very 
comfortable  Indian  hut  or  "bribary"  built  on  the  banks 
of  this  stream.  There  was  no  one  there,  but  a  consider- 
able amount  of  Indian  belongings,  such  as  paddles,  traps 
and  fishing  apparatus.  Having  been  out  in  the  rain  for 
two  days  and  nights,  this  place  seemed  a  palace  to  me. 

I  built  a  fire  and  made  some  tea,  and  told  Romeo  that 
we  would  have  to  rest  here  for  a  day  or  two  for  him  to 
recover  his  strength.  I  then  walked  down  to  the  beach 
to  gather  some  driftwood  for  the  fire.  The  beach  on  this 
coast,  from  California  up,  is  piled  high  with  driftwood; 
it  is  a  continuous  line.  Wherever  there  is  a  beach  it  is 
piled  high  with  wood,  and  I  estimate  there  must  be  30,000 
miles  of  it.  I  had  gathered  an  armful,  when,  looking  up, 
I  saw  a  figure  standing  not  far  away.  I  yelled  and  the 
figure  turned  and  started  to  run.  I  dropped  my  wood  and 
gave  chase,  yelling  all  the  while.  As  I  rapidly  gained,  the 
figure  fell  to  the  ground.  Upon  coming  up  I  recognized 
Mrs.  Krowley.  She  was  dressed  in  what  sailors  call  a 
Southwester,  with  hip  rubber  boots.  She  was  badly 
frightened,  having  mistaken  me  for  a  Dry  Bay  Indian. 
She  presented  a  pathetic  sight,  sitting  there  on  the  cold, 
wet   ground,   her  eye   still   black    from   George's   blow. 


74 


THE  RETREAT 

When  she  recogtiized  me  she  began  to  sob,  and  I  sat  down 
beside  her  and  waited.  Her  frail  little  body  was  con- 
vulsed with  emotion  and  despair,  and  I  felt  that,  what- 
ever she  was,  I  would  do  anything  for  her  now. 

She  told  me  that  Krowley  and  Brooks  were  nearby, 
pitching  camp,  and  that  they  had  no  provisions,  except 
tea  and  a  little  hardtack.  I  went  to  her  camp  with  her 
and  apologized  to  Mr.  Krowley  for  having  frightened 
his  bride.  It  seems  that  these  people  had  started  out 
immediately  after  their  trouble  with  George,  but  had 
been  lost  in  the  forest  for  several  days,  and  had  just  now 
come  out  on  the  beach. 

After  looking  over  their  situation,  I  invited  them  all 
to  come  down  to  my  palace  on  the  river,  which  invitation 
they  very  gratefully  accepted. 

So  we  were  five  now,  and  had  started  with  provisions 
for  two.  We  all  sat  around  the  fire  that  night  and  got 
dry  and  warm  for  the  first  time  in  several  days. 

A  peculiar  assertive  feeling  came  over  me.  I  may  have 
been  a  little  intoxicated  by  the  large  quantities  of  tea  I 
had  been  drinking,  for  tea,  if  drunk  in  large  quantities, 
will  affect  you  a  little  that  way. 

Anyway,  I  announced  in  a  most  emphatic  tone  that  from 
now  on  I  would  assume  leadership  of  this  party;  that  if 
anyone  there  did  not  like  it,  he  or  she  could  immediately 
leave  my  house. 

I  told  Brooks  that  he  would  get  out  at  dawn  and  pro- 
ceed along  the  beach  to  a  point  about  eight  miles  back, 
where  he  would  find  an  axe  and  certain  other  things, 
which  he  would  immediately  bring  to  me,  as  I  might  need 
him  further  in  the  afternoon. 


75 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN   ALASKA 

I  told  Mrs.  Krowley  that  we  were  not  interested  in  the 
time  when  she  was  a  society  leader  in  West  Milwaukee, 
but  I  hoped  she  would  prove  amiable  and  courageous  in 
these  circumstances  and  give  Romeo  whatever  attention 
she  could, 

Romeo  was  dum founded  at  my  speech  and  attitude,  but 
pleased.  Indeed,  I  was  surprised  at  myself,  but  it  worked 
perfectly,  and  from  that  moment  my  word  was  law.  In 
some  such  way  as  this,  I  imagine,  the  first  petty  monarch 
established  himself  on  earth,  though  he  had  perhaps  some- 
thing stronger  than  tea  as  an  excuse. 

The  next  day  and  the  next  it  rained  and  poured,  and 
we  did  not  move  on  account  of  Romeo's  condition.  He 
was  very  weak,  and  I  was  at  a  loss  to  know  what  to  do 
with  him.  After  two  days  we  again  started  and,  cross- 
ing the  river  with  some  difficulty,  went  on  our  way. 

We  three  men  were  loaded  fairly  well,  but  not  too 
heavily,  I  having  ordered  a  thirty  pound  sleeping  bag  be- 
longing to  Mrs.  Krowley  to  be  left  behind.  No  one  said 
a  word. 

Very  shortly  after  crossing  this  river  our  troubles  com- 
menced. Leaving  the  belt  of  timber  land  that  skirted 
the  river  banks,  we  came  out  upon  an  extensive  network 
of  quicksand  marshes.  There  was  no  timber  growing 
in  this  belt,  only  clusters  of  Alder  brush.  It  appeared  to 
be  about  fifteen  miles  across  to  big  timber,  and  to  extend 
from  the  sea  back  to  the  foothills,  which  were  also  about 
fifteen  miles  away.  I  did  not  for  the  first  day  or  two 
realize  the  difficulties  and  dangers  that  confronted  us, 
and  we  pushed  on  as  best  we  could. 

We  would  cross  a  short  distance  of  this  sand  and  then 


76 


THE  RETREAT 

a  short  distance  of  solid  earth,  and  so  on  without  end.  It 
was  very  heavy  and  slow  traveling,  for  long  detours  had 
to  be  made.  It  was  dangerous,  too,  for  several  times  I 
had  to  lie  down  and  roll  over  and  over  as  rapidly  as  I 
could  in  order  to  get  out.  I  dont'  think  we  made  over  two 
miles  the  first  day,  when  we  camped  in  a  cluster  of  Alder 
brush. 

Finally,  the  marshes  became  much  worse,  and  in  addi- 
tion thereto  we  came  to  numerous  streams,  some  of  them 
quite  deep,  which  had  to  be  waded.  The  banks  of  these 
streams  were  usually  solid,  but  their  bottoms  proved 
treacherous.  Krowley  came  very  near,  indeed,  losing  his 
life  in  one  of  them,  and  all  of  us  had  several  narrow 
escapes  more  than  once. 

The  situation  was,  in  fact,  desperate  in  every  way,  and 
our  provisions  had  been  reduced  to  almost  nothing.  It 
was  evident  that  we  could  make  no  headway  in  this  place, 
and  would  surely  perish  if  we  persisted.  I  began  to 
upbraid  myself  for  not  having  more  accurately  read  the 
terrain,  for  certainly  the  absence  of  timber  here  meant 
something,  and  we  had  actually  seen  what  that  something 
was  in  the  beginning.  Yet  I  had  plunged  blindly  on,  wast- 
ing much  precious  time,  our  provisions  and  strength. 

Impressed  by  this  situation,  I  called  the  party  together 
and  announced  that  the  route  must  be  immediately  aban- 
doned. Romeo,  who  was  again  almost  in  a  state  of  col- 
lapse, could,  in  fact,  go  no  further.  I  turned  over  to 
Krowley  all  the  provisions  we  had  except  about  a  pound 
of  tea  and  a  handful  of  cracker  dust  that  was  in  the  bot- 
tom of  my  haversack.     I  told  him  to  take  his  wife  and 

77 


AN   ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

Romeo  back  to  the  cabin  we  had  just  left  and  to  remain 
there  until  I  sent  some  Indians  up  from  Yakutat  for  them 
by  boat. 

I  explained  to  him  that  Brooks  and  I  would  make  our 
way  to  the  foothills,  which  were  in  sight,  and,  having 
found  solid  ground,  would  continue  on  to  the  head  of  En- 
chantment Bay,  where  he  had  left  a  good  boat  secured. 
In  this  we  would  proceed  to  Yakutat  and  would  at  once 
send  some  Indians  to  fetch  them  out. 

It  was  a  hopeless  and  desperately  depressed  group  that 
stood  around  me  on  that  far  away  marsh.  Mrs.  Krowley 
gave  way  to  tears;  so  did  Krowley.  However,  there 
seemed  nothing  else  to  do.  I  started  them  off  on  their  re- 
turn to  the  cabin,  which  I  do  not  think  was  more  than  five 
miles  away.  They  had  provisions  that  with  care  would 
last  for  some  days,  and  tea  that  would  last  for  a  month. 
We  could  see  them  for  some  distance  after  we  parted, 
slowly  making  their  way  toward  the  cabin,  poor  Romeo 
bent  over  and  walking  with  two  sticks,  very  much  re- 
sembling a  crab,  I  thought,  in  the  distance. 

Brooks  and  I  then  started  on  our  long  tramp  for  the 
foothills.  We  followed  the  banks  of  the  stream  we  were 
on,  but  were  still  bothered  and  delayed  very  much  by 
quicksand,  and  had  to  wade  this  stream  many  times.  It 
was  a  tedious,  dangerous  and  long  tramp.  It  was  the 
worst  place  I  have  ever  seen,  and  what  seemed  curious  to 
me  was  the  number  of  dead  fish  that  covered  the  whole 
surface  of  the  earth  for  miles  and  miles. 

It  seems  that  this  place  in  July  and  August  is  covered 
with  water  from  the  melting  snow  in  the  foothills.  The 
fish  then  come  in  here  by  the  tens  of  thousands.     At  the 

78 


THE  RETREAT 

first  freeze  the  water  recedes,  leaving  these  fish  to  die. 
So  the  fish  we  now  saw  had  been  dead  for  about  a  year, 
and  would  soon  be  washed  out  to  sea  and  others  would 
take  their  place. 

Brooks,  as  a  companion,  proved  amiable  enough, 
though  he  was  weak  and  would  give  way  to  fits  of  despair. 
At  such  times  he  talked  incessantly  of  his  little  farm  "back 
in  Missouri,"  and  would  mourn  and  wail  and  swing  him- 
self like  a  Baptist  about  to  shout.  We,  of  course,  had  no 
provisions  at  all,  except  tea  without  sugar.  We  drank 
great  quantities  of  this,  and  always  felt  stimulated. 

It  was,  of  course,  a  dreadfully  rough  trip,  and  we  were 
growing  weaker  all  the  time,  but  what  amazed  me  was 
that  I  did  not  suffer  from  hunger  at  all.  I  felt  myself 
growing  weaker  each  day,  but  had  no  pangs  or  uncom- 
fortable feeling  at  any  time.  In  about  forty-eight  hours 
we  succeeded  in  freeing  ourselves  from  this  dreadful 
quagmire  and  reached  solid  land. 

I  knew  the  exact  position  of  our  old  Camp  No.  3  from 
its  location  near  the  base  of  an  extinct  volcano,  whose 
top  had  been  blown  off  in  a  peculiar  way.  We  directed 
ourselves  toward  this  camp,  which  was,  in  fact,  not  more 
than  a  dozen  miles  away,  but  we  encountered  many  unex- 
pected difficulties. 

As  soon  as  we  reached  the  highlands  we  found  several 
feet  of  snow,  which  was  very  soft,  and  we  had  no  snow 
shoes.  Often  we  had  to  plough  through  this  up  to  our 
waist,  and  as  a  general  thing  it  was  knee  deep.  This 
delayed  us  dreadfully  and  absorbed  our  strength.  There 
were,  besides,  many  huge  and  extensive  "wind-falls"  of 
tangled  trees  in  our  paths,  which  are  difficult  things  to 


79 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

scale,  and  also  numerous  streams  to  wade.  In  short,  the 
entire  aspect  of  the  country  had  changed  since  I  had 
passed  through  here  during  the  winter.  All  of  these 
things  were  covered  up  and  frozen  then,  so  that  we 
passed  over  them  without  even  knowing  of  their  presence. 
It  was  very  different  now,  and  the  difficulties  were  in- 
creased a  thousandfold. 

Finally  we  became  so  weak  that  we  had  to  stop  every 
few  hundred  yards  to  rest.  Brooks  was  constantly  raving 
about  his  little  farm  "back  in  Missouri,"  and  his  face  had 
taken  on  a  deathly  pallor.  My  shoulders  were  raw  from 
the  blanket  straps,  and  they  became  an  intolerable  burden. 
It  did  not  seem  possible  to  carry  them  any  farther,  espe- 
cially over  the  "wind-falls,"  which  had  to  be  climbed. 
They  were  constantly  catching  in  branches  and  snags, 
and  we  had  some  dangerous  falls,  for  some  of  these 
"wind-falls"  covered  several  acres  and  were  from  three 
to  twenty  feet  high. 

So  we  discarded  our  blankets  and  proceeded  with  only 
our  axes,  rifles,  a  coffee  pot,  some  tea  and  a  big  block  of 
Chinese  matches.  This  relieved  us  of  a  sore  trial  while 
moving,  but  it  proved  a  great  hardship  at  night,  for  it  was 
still  very  cold  and  we  got  no  rest  at  all  after  this,  having 
to  spend  the  night  cutting  wood  and  huddled  closely  be- 
side the  fire. 

I  thought  at  this  time  that  we  should  surely  reach  the 
head  of  the  bay  in  twenty-four  hours.  However,  so  im- 
mensely difficult  was  the  task  and  so  weak  had  we  become, 
that  it  was  forty-eight  hours  before  we  reached  the  mo- 
raines. During  all  this  time  I  never  felt  the  slightest 
doubt  but  that  we  should  come  through  in  perfect  safety, 

80 


THE  RETREAT 

though  I  reahzed,  of  course,  that  we  were  having  a  des- 
perate time  and  that  there  were  still  hardships  to  be  met. 

While  we  were  so  weak  for  want  of  food,  there  were 
thousands  of  geese  flying  over  our  heads ;  they  were  con- 
stantly flying,  night  and  day,  and  often  very  low.  We 
had  been  firing  at  them  for  days,  but  had  never  got 
even  so  much  as  a  feather.  Our  ammunition  now  was 
almost  exhausted.  Finally,  one  evening,  our  last  eve- 
ning in  the  woods,  we  came  upon  a  flock  that  had  alighted 
in  a  bottom.  Brooks  fired  at  them.  Imagine  our  joy 
when  one  fell.  We  almost  shouted.  We  cut  that  goose 
up  and  boiled  him  in  the  coffee  pot.  We  had  several  pots 
full  of  it,  and  it  was  the  best  wild  goose  I  have  ever 
tasted,  without  salt  or  bread. 

That  night  we  spent  at  our  old  Camp  No.  3,  and  though 
we  got  no  sleep  again,  we  felt  better  and  much  stronger. 
From  here  on  I  was  on  very  familiar  ground.  We  started 
early  the  next  morning  for  the  moraine,  which  was  only  a 
few  miles  through  the  forest,  and  at  the  foot  of  this 
moraine  we  had  left  a  boat  that  I  now  expected  to  secure 
and  to  proceed  on  our  journey  to  Yakutat. 

Suppose  the  boat  had  disappeared,  had  been  broken  up 
by  the  ice  or  taken  away?  Then,  indeed,  we  should  be  in 
desperate  straits.  There  was  no  question  about  that.  We 
approached  the  moraine,  therefore,  with  much  anxiety 
and  with  a  feeling  that  we  must  rush  and  see  as  quickly 
as  possible. 

As  soon  as  we  came  out  to  the  moraine,  however,  we 
thought  no  more  of  the  boat,  for  the  sight  that  met  our 
eyes  amazed  us  and  we  stood  for  a  while  stupefied. 

We  came  out  on  the  moraine  at  a  point  about  halfway 

81 


AN   ADVENTURE  IN   ALASKA 

between  our  old  Camps  No.  i  and  No.  2,  and  from  this 
point  a  view  of  the  entire  moraine  was  had.  Immediately 
across  from  where  we  stood  was  a  cluster  of  tents  which 
extended  all  the  way  up  to  our  Camp  No.  2.  Below,  in 
the  vicinity  of  our  old  Camp  No.  i,  was  another  cluster 
of  tents.  Scattered  along  throughout  the  moraine  itself 
were  several  hundred  men,  working  away,  pulling,  pack- 
ing and  carrying  great  loads;  some  of  them  even  had 
horses,  and  they  extended  far  up  on  to  the  glacier  itself, 
where  they  looked  like  little  flies  perched  on  a  great  white 
wall. 

I  was  entirely  bewildered,  and  a  great  feeling  of  dis- 
appointment came  over  me,  for  I  thought  that  these  peo- 
ple had  made  a  rich  strike  on  the  spot  where  we  had 
camped  alone  and  wasted  so  much  time.  I  fired  my  rifle 
and  waited  for  an  invitation  to  come  over.  This  was 
answered  from  the  front  of  several  tents.  I  fired  again 
and  the  invitation  was  repeated.  We  then  crossed  the 
moraine,  which  was  here  about  a  half-mile  wide. 

As  we  struggled  up  the  opposite  bank  several  men  met 
us,  and  we  were  at  once  invited  in.  The  head  of  the 
party  who  received  us  was  a  man  named  Hearndon.  He 
was  from  Chicago,  and  had  charge  of  a  small  party  of 
young  men,  "sons  of  well-to-do,"  some  of  whom,  I  soon 
gathered,  had  been  running  rather  untamed  along  State 
Street. 

Hearndon  was  making  men  of  them,  and  had  several 
of  them  in  harness  and  hitched  to  sleds,  as  he  introduced 
them  to  me,  giving  at  the  same  time  some  amusing  little 
account  of  each.  One  was  the  son  of  a  Senator  of  much 
influence  in  Washington  at  that  time;  the  father  of  an- 

82 


THE  RETREAT 

Other  was  a  well-known  banker  and  philanthropist  of  Chi- 
cago. I  told  Hearndon  that  we  had  had  no  food  for 
some  time,  and  we  were  immediately  supplied  with  a  hot 
meal  of  everything-  that  is  best  in  camp.  During  the 
meal  I  told  Hearndon  that  I  belonged  to  the  Stinson  party, 
and  gave  him  a  rapid  account  of  our  experiences.  Sev- 
eral other  men  were  also  in  the  tent.  I  told  him  that 
there  was  something  very  rotten  about  the  Stinson  party 
that  I  did  not  understand  as  yet.  That  we  had  not  gone 
over  that  glacier  at  all,  as  he  supposed  we  had ;  that  the 
glacier  could  not  be  crossed,  in  fact,  and  did  indeed  lead 
nowhere. 

I  noticed  several  times  a  pained  and  peculiar  look  in 
Hearndon's  face.  I  went  on,  however,  and  told  him 
that  the  Stinson  party  was  at  that  moment  some  fifty 
miles  down  the  coast,  near  Dry  Bay.  I  then  got  a  look 
and  gesture  which  said  most  plainly  "shut  up."  I  was  a 
little  puzzled  at  this.  The  party  in  the  tent  had  been 
increased  by  several  while  this  was  going  on,  and  Brooks 
also  was  talking  at  a  great  rate,  but  mostly  about  his 
little  farm  "back  in  Missouri"  and  the  terrible  hardships 
we  had  just  gone  through  with. 

The  meal  over,  Hearndon  took  me  to  another  tent, 
where  we  conversed  alone.  He  then  explained  to  me  that 
practically  all  of  these  people,  the  several  hundred  that 
were  then  encamped  along  the  moraine,  had  been  sent  up 
there  by  Rennick  and  Pennick ;  that  they  all  had  letters  to 
George  Stinson,  Bruce  Gotten  or  some  other  member  of 
the  party,  instructing  said  Stinson  or  Gotten  to  locate 
bearer  on  certain  placer  diggings  named  and  described  as 
now  held  by  said  Stinson,  Gotten  or  Lang  for  said 
Rennick. 

83 


AN   ADVENTURE  IN   ALASKA 

Hearndon  said  that  there  were  many  men  here  who  had 
paid  their  all  for  this  purchase  of  a  claim  from  Rennick; 
that  very  many  of  them  were  now  suspicious  of  the  whole 
thing  and  were  desperate  and  discouraged.  Therefore, 
he  had  stopped  me  from  talking  in  the  other  tent  as  soon 
as  he  could,  because  he  was  not  sure  what  the  effect  of 
my  disclosure  would  be  on  this  situation. 

He  himself  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  Rennick. 
He  had  merely  come  out  to  take  care  of  a  bunch  of  young 
fellows,  mostly  sons  of  his  friends.  Having  heard  that 
there  was  a  great  rush  on  to  Yakutat,  he  had  followed 
along,  thinking  this  as  good  a  place  as  anywhere  to  break 
in  and  give  his  young  fellows  experience. 

This  was,  of  course,  a  great  surprise  and  shock  to  me, 
and  I  began  to  see  the  light.  I  now  understood  Rennick's 
kindly  interest  in  seeing  that  we  got  that  $i  a  day  and 
why.  To  insure  this,  he  had  insisted  that  the  bank  should 
give  him  a  receipt  each  month  for  the  amount  placed  to 
our  credit.  For  did  this  not  prove  that  Gotten,  Lang  and 
the  rest  of  us  were  his  caretakers  in  Alaska,  and  what 
better  proof  would  any  Iowa  farmer  want  than  this  state- 
ment from  a  national  bank?  It  was  a  wicked  thing,  this 
wholesale  robbery  of  the  credulous  and  simple-minded, 
and  Rennick  paid  for  it  with  his  life. 

But  to  return  to  Hearndon,  After  full  explanations  I 
had  a  feeling  that  Hearndon  was  hesitating  to  say  some- 
thing that  was  on  his  mind.  I  then  asked  him  frankly 
what  he  thought  the  effect  of  my  presence  in  camp  would 
be.  He  was  immediately  relieved  and  said :  "That  is  just 
what  I  have  been  thinking  about."  He  said  that  there 
were  many  desperate  men  there;  that  they  were  now 

84 


THE  RETREAT 

almost  all  out  at  work  and  scattered  along  the  trail ;  that 
when  they  returned  my  disclosures  would  be  known 
throughout  the  camp.  Well,  he  got  up  and  went  out  of 
the  tent  for  a  few  moments.  When  he  returned  he  said, 
"If  I  were  you,  I  should  go  on  to  Yakutat  tonight.  I  can 
get  you  an  Indian  who  will  take  you  and  Brooks  down, 
and  you  can  leave  now."  I  said,  "All  right;  I  will  do 
so."    He  went  for  the  Indian  and  I  went  to  find  Brooks. 

Brooks  was  seated  on  a  pile  of  goods  talking  to  some 
of  Hearndon's  party.  The  strangers  who  were  in  the 
tent  while  I  was  having  my  meal  had  disappeared. 

It  was  a  wonderful  day.  The  sun  was  a  blaze  of  glory. 
I  looked  across  the  moraine  that  I  knew  so  well  and  loved, 
too,  for  it  had  given  me  many,  many  interesting  moments, 
and  it  seemed  to  belong  to  me,  too,  for  I  had  it  all  to  my- 
self, and  now  it  was  filled  with  all  those  idiotic  farmers, 
who  should  have  been  at  home  attending  to  their  wives 
and  pigs,  instead  of  coming  here  to  ruin  themselves  and 
spoil  the  view. 

What  Hearndon  had  really  said  to  me  was,  that  if  I 
did  not  get  out  of  camp  before  these  men  came  in  from 
work,  I  might  be  hanged.  He  did  not  use  these  words, 
but  there  was  no  mistaking  his  meaning.  These  men 
had  been  ruined.  My  own  disclosures  proved  that,  and 
certainly  Stinson  and  the  rest  of  us  were  associated  in 
the  fraud,  and  would  look  very  proper  on  the  short  end 
of  a  rope. 

This,  of  course,  did  not  appeal  to  me  at  all.  I  had  left 
home  prepared  for  any  honorable  adventure,  but  this  was 
too  much.     The  people  at  home  would  certainly  never 

85 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

understand  such  a  performance,  and  I  should  have  been 
a  disgrace  to  the  family  forever. 

I  called  Brooks  and  told  him  that  we  would  leave  at 
once  for  Yakutat.  He  protested,  but  when  I  told  him 
of  the  situation  and  reminded  him  that  there  was  a  man 
named  Brooks  in  the  Stinson  party,  he  became  as  meek 
as  a  lamb. 

Hearndon  had  sent  the  Indian  to  prepare  the  boat,  and 
now  told  me  that  the  Indians  at  Yakutat  were  very  much 
excited,  and  that  most  of  them  had  run  away  to  the  woods. 
It  seemed  that  one  of  their  medicine  men  had  tied  up 
some  witches  and  had  tortured  one  to  death.  The  Gov- 
ernor had  been  appealed  to,  and  had  visited  Yakutat  in 
the  little  gunboat  Wheeling.  He  tried  to  arrest  the  medi- 
cine man,  but,  being  unable  to  find  him,  had  fired  the 
ship's  guns  and  turned  the  searchlights  on  the  village 
itself,  which  so  frightened  the  Indians  that  they  had  fled. 

The  Indian,  however,  who  was  to  take  me  down,  "Skoo- 
cum"  Jim,  was  all  right,  he  said,  for  he  had  been  working 
for  Hearndon  for  a  week  or  two.* 

Hearndon  walked  with  me  almost  to  the  beach,  and 
asked  me  that  if  I  got  to  Seattle  to  please  try  and  find  a 
Mr.  Colton  and  to  stop  him  from  coming  up.  He  said 
that  Mr.  Colton  was  from  Kentucky,  and  had  been  an 
Episcopal  minister,  was  a  friend  of  his,  and  he  wanted  me 
to  stop  him  from  coming  and  thus  save  him  a  heavy  ex- 
pense. He  had  no  idea  where  I  would  find  Mr.  Colton  in 
Seattle. 


"Skoocum"  means  strong,  handsome,  noble,  true,  brave  and  many 
other  nice  things,  so  if  there  is  anything  in  a  name,  Jim  should  have 
been  perfection. 

86 


THE  RETREAT 

We  found  "Skoocum"  Jim  waiting  for  us  at  the  foot 
of  the  moraine,  where  there  was  a  store  with  all  manner 
of  things  for  sale,  and  on  the  site  where  our  Camp  No.  i 
had  been  I  noticed  that  the  woods  had  been  marked  out 
in  streets  for  the  location  of  a  town.  I  did  not  inquire  as 
to  what  this  new  city  was  going  to  be  called.  Rennick- 
ville,  I  suppose,  would  have  been  a  proper  name,  but  I 
was  not  then  suggesting  anything  to  anybody,  and  felt 
no  particular  civic  pride  in  the  locality. 

Since  this  is  an  intimate  relation,  I  must  admit  some- 
thing here  that  usually  is  not  confessed  except  to  one's 
closest  pal.  That  is,  that  all  the  money  I  had  was  two 
$5  gold  pieces  that  I  had  carried  all  winter  securely  sewn 
in  the  lining  of  my  coat.  As  for  Brooks,  he  did  not  have 
a  penny.  I  cut  them  out  here  and  purchased  some  sugar, 
bacon  and  hardtack,  and  paid  the  Indian  $6  for  the  trip 
in  advance.  At  Yakutat,  however,  I  sold  this  same  In- 
dian my  rifle,  or  rather  the  rifle  I  had,  for  $i8,  so  I  was 
still  far  from  broke. 

We  started  immediately,  about  4  o'clock  in  the  after- 
noon. The  boat  was  an  Indian  canoe,  dug  out  and 
equipped  with  a  small  sail  in  the  bow,  which  was  a  great 
help  in  places. 

We  traveled  all  night  and  until  about  9  o'clock  the 
next  morning  without  any  stop,  for  indeed  there  were  no 
places  where  we  could  stop.  This  night  and  this  trip 
have  always  stood  out  in  my  memory  as  the  night  of  all 
horrors.  Certainly  in  my  life  I  have  never  suffered  such 
frightful  pain  and  such  prolonged  agony  as  on  this  occa- 
sion. We  were  both,  of  course,  as  can  be  judged  from 
this  little  description  I  have  given,  in  an  advanced  stage 

87 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

of  exhaustion.  It  was  true,  we  had  food  now,  but  we 
were  full  of  bruises  and  stiffness,  my  feet  were  much 
swollen,  and  I  ached  all  over.  But  what  caused  us  by  far 
the  greatest  agony  was  our  need  of  sleep.  We  had  had  no 
sleep  at  all  to  speak  of  for  over  seventy  hours,  and  very 
little,  indeed,  since  we  left  the  Indian  hut  on  the  river. 
As  the  sun  got  low  my  eyes  began  to  pain  me  fearfully. 
My  eyelids  seemed  like  lead  and  spikes  seemed  to  have 
been  driven  into  my  pupils.  It  was  fearfully  cold,  and 
we  had  no  blankets  or  shelter  of  any  kind.  To  sleep 
meant  certain  death,  either  by  freezing  or  by  falling  out 
of  the  canoe,  which  was  too  small  to  lie  down  in.  There 
was  nothing  to  do  but  to  paddle  and  suffer. 

There  were  many  icebergs  in  the  bay,  and  I  am  sure 
I  was  delirious  at  times,  for  I  had  visions  and  saw 
many  unreal  things,  such  as  great  ships  and  groups  of 
men  and  animals  fighting  among  these  icebergs.  These 
ships  were  most  distinct,  and  sometimes  passed  so  near 
that  I  feared  we  would  be  run  down.  They  were  all  of 
ancient  design  and  carried  men  armed  with  spears  and 
axes  and  protected  with  armor  and  shields  like  the 
cohorts  in  Caesar's  Legions. 

I  never  lost  my  senses  and  knew  that  these  things  could 
not  exist,  yet  they  were  so  real  to  me  that  when  we  landed 
on  a  little  island  the  next  morning.  I  took  pains  to  let  the 
Indian  go  ashore  first,  though  he  had  to  crawl  over  me 
to  do  so.  I  was  not  at  all  sure  it  was  a  real  island. 
Brooks  was  suffering,  too,  and  groaned  a  great  deal, 
though  I  never  knew  what  particular  form  his  agony 
took.  We  had  hot  tea  and  breakfast  on  this  island  and 
felt  better.    We  were  at  the  mouth  of  Enchantment  Bay, 

88 


THE  RETREAT 

and  from  here  on  for  a  distance  of  about  five  miles  we 
were  exposed  to  the  full  swell  from  the  ocean  as  it  swept 
into  Yakutat  Bay.  It  was  entirely  too  rough  for  a  canoe, 
and  how  we  ever  made  it  and  were  not  all  drowned 
has  always  been  a  mystery  to  me.  This  Indian  was  a 
master  boatman,  but  even  he  at  times  was  alarmed. 

To  make  a  dangerous  situation  worse,  Brooks,  when 
we  were  in  the  midst  of  this  passage  and  under  full  sail, 
seemed  to  be  seized  with  some  form  of  mental  disorder. 
He  began  to  throw  himself  from  side  to  side  and  turn 
himself  about.  The  boat  was  all  but  capsized  several 
times.  The  Indian  threw  off  his  coat  in  order  to  take  to 
the  water.  As  for  me,  I  could  not  have  lived  five  minutes 
in  that  water,  and  the  shore  was  fully  two  miles  away. 
We  were  facing  certain  death  if  Brooks  was  not  quieted 
instantly.  He  was  seated  in  front  of  me,  on  the  forward 
seat  of  the  boat,  and  I  was  facing  his  back,  but  during 
these  contortions  he  had  got  himself  turned  around  in 
some  way  and  was  now  seated  facing  me. 

I  reached  forward  and  struck  him  as  hard  as  I  could 
with  my  fist  squarely  in  the  mouth.  He  fell  over  in  the 
boat,  his  back  and  shoulders  on  the  bottom,  his  legs 
hanging  over  the  seat.  Most  fortunately,  he  fell  square 
and  did  not  move,  or  we  should  have  been  lost.  I  crawled 
forward  between  his  knees  and  told  him  not  to  move  or 
the  boat  would  be  capsized.  He  said,  "Is  that  you,  Cot- 
ten?"  and  lay  perfectly  still.  I  crouched  over  him  and 
watched  him  and  cautioned  him  occasionally.  His  lips 
began  to  swell,  and  a  tiny  little  stream  of  blood  trickled 
down  on  his  beard.  I  had  a  big  feeling  of  sorrow  for 
him  then,  and  affection,  as  he  lay  there  perfectly  still, 
thank  God. 

89 


AN   ADVENTURE  IN   ALASKA 

Fortunately,  we  were  soon  out  of  this  rough  water, 
for  we  had  sailed  it  at  good  speed.  We  came  under  the 
lee  of  a  little  island,  called  Hat  Island,  because  of  its 
shape  like  a  hat.  To  my  joy,  I  saw  several  tents  pitched 
there.  "Skoocum"  said  they  were  Indians  fishing.  I  told 
•him  to  go  ashore,  for  I  wanted  to  get  Brooks  up.  We 
found  quite  a  party  of  Indians  camped  there.  They  re- 
ceived us  with  open  arms  and  with  more  tokens  of  friend- 
ship than  I  had  ever  seen  Indians  show  before. 

We  got  Brooks  up  and  took  him  in  a  tent  where  there 
was  a  stove.  We  warmed  up  and  drank  tea.  These  In- 
dians were  so  polite  and  considerate  that  I  was  mystified, 
and  finally  became  suspicious,  for  Indians  are  never 
thoughtful  of  your  comfort  and  considerate  in  a  way  these 
Indians  were.  Besides,  they  insisted  upon  giving  us 
their  own  tea,  which  was  extraordinary,  I  thought,  for 
they  value  tea  beyond  anything  on  earth,  and  are  rarely 
able  to  keep  themselves  supplied  with  it. 

I  kept  hearing  a  peculiar  noise  in  an  adjoining  tent, 
and  feeling  now  somewhat  suspicious,  I  got  up  and 
walked  over  to  this  tent  and  went  in.  There  I  found, 
seated  around  the  body  of  a  dead  woman,  several  Indians, 
among  whom  was  the  old  medicine  man.  They  were  hav- 
ing some  ceremony  and  putting  hot  rocks  to  the  body  in 
an  effort  to  restore  her  life.  The  odor  in  the  tent  was 
frightful,  and  I  withdrew,  more  suspicious  than  ever,  for 
I  remembered  what  Hearndon  had  told  me  about  the  Gov- 
ernor trying  to  arrest  this  medicine  man,  and  I  sur- 
mized that  his  followers  here  perhaps  thought  that  we 
were  looking  for  him  and  might  take  him  away. 

I  do  not,  of  course,  know  whether  these  Indians  medi- 


90 


THE  RETREAT 


tated  any  mischief  toward  Brooks  and  myself  or  not ;  any- 
way, I  felt  very  suspicious  of  them.  They  might  have 
poisined  the  tea,  which  I  now  seemed  to  remember 
tasted  rather  queerly,  and  the  more  I  thought  of  this  the 
more  queerly  I  remembered  the  tea  had  tasted. 

Though  being  killed  by  Indians  on  an  island  was  much 
more  romantic  than  being  hanged  by  white  men  on  the 
mainland,  yet  I  was  not  prepared  for  this  either,  so  I  de- 
cided to  leave  the  island  at  once.  "Skoocum"  said  that 
Yakutat  was  not  so  far  away,  and  pointed  out  to  me  and 
illustrated  by  a  drawing  on  the  ground  that  by  using  a 
portage  across  a  narrow  island  that  lay  between  us  we 
could  make  it  that  night.  We  started  immediately. 
Brooks  perfectly  quiet  and  apparently  much  better. 
Brooks,  I  might  say,  never  remembered  anything  at  all 
about  the  latter  part  of  this  trip.  I  lived  with  him  for 
about  two  weeks  afterwards,  and  he  had  no  recollection 
whatever  of  that  episode  in  the  boat,  or  of  being  on  this 

island  at  all. 

Our  way  from  here  was  through  quiet  waters  and 
among  numerous  small  islands.  We  reached  the  portage 
and  carried  our  boat  about  lOO  yards  across  an  island. 
From  here  we  could  see  Yakutat ;  in  fact,  we  were  imme- 
diately in  front  of  the  town,  and  it  was  only  a  question 
now  of  crossing  over  a  distance  of  about  two  miles. 

We  landed  in  front  of  Johnson's  store.  It  was  about 
10  o'clock  at  night,  though  the  sun  was  shining  brightly. 
Johnson  received  us  most  kindly,  seated  us  beside  a  big 
iron  stove  that  had  been  made  from  a  Standard  Oil  drum, 
and  started  some  of  his  squaws  preparing  a  meal  for  us. 

I  became  warm  and  dry.     I  could  feel  my  whole  ner- 


91 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

vous  system  relaxing  with  jerks  and  twitches.  All  my 
troubles  seemed  to  be  gone,  and  I  was  drifting  away. 
Johnson  seemed  to  be  talking  in  the  distance.  I  remember 
seeing  some  hot  rolls,  some  butter  and  steaming  coffee. 
But  that  was  the  last.    I  passed  away,  asleep. 


92 


CHAPTER  VIL 
Back  to  Seattle. 

Sometime  the  next  morning  I  awoke  in  Johnson's 
store,  where  I  had  been  placed  away  on  a  cot  and  cov- 
ered with  blankets.  They  had  got  my  shoes  off  with 
difficulty,  and  my  feet  were  very  sore  and  swollen.  Oth- 
erwise I  felt  very  well,  surprisingly  well,  considering. 
Johnson  prescribed  hot  sea  water  for  my  feet,  and  I  got 
"Skoocum"  to  get  me  some  from  the  bay  and  heat  it. 
This  seemed  to  help  very  much.  I  continued  this  for  sev- 
eral days,  and  the  swelling  passed  entirely.  "Skoocum" 
had  taken  a  great  fancy  to  my  rifle  and  was  around  two 
or  three  times  a  day  to  buy  it.  I  told  him  Iwould  not  sell 
it  to  him  now,  but  that  if  he  would  bring  me  that  hot  sea 
water  twice  a  day,  when  my  feet  got  well  I  would  let 
him  have  it.  This  he  did  faithfully,  and  I  sold  him  this 
rifle  for  $i8. 

My  first  thought,  of  course,  was  to  relieve  Romeo  and 
the  Krowleys  from  their  predicament  in  the  cabin  down 
the  coast,  and  with  Johnson's  assistance  two  Indians  were 
at  once  dispatched  in  a  boat,  who  brought  them  in  safely, 
the  round  trip  taking  only  about  three  days.  It  seems 
that  the  Indians  knew  these  quicksand  marshes  well,  and 
would  under  no  circumstances  enter  them.  However, 
there  was  a  short  cut  to  that  cabin  by  way  of  a  portage 
and  river  called  Ancow,  which,  if  we  had  known  it, 
would  have  saved  us  great  trouble  and  hardships.  Romeo 
arrived  looking  better  for  his  rest  in  the  cabin,  but  very 


93 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

morose  and  sour.    He  and  the  Krowleys  were  taken  in  at 
the  Mission,  and  were  very  comfortable  there. 

Johnson's  sense  of  humor  and  amusing  ways  was  a 
fine  tonic,  and  did  much  to  brace  me  up.  Feehng,  how- 
ever, that  we  ought  not  to  land  ourselves  on  him,  I  rented 
the  front  room  of  Steve's  cottage — the  same  Steve  who 
had  brought  us  here  and  who  had  recently  been  hanged 
on  the  Valdez  Glacier.  His  young  squaw  was  glad  to 
get  $2.50  per  week  for  permitting  us  to  sleep  on  the 
floor  and  furnish  our  own  blankets,  which  Johnson  loaned 
us.  This  was  an  attractive  little  room  for  these  parts, 
and  was  the  "drawing  room"  of  the  cottage.  There  were 
several  "icons"  on  the  wall  and  some  decorated  skins 
and  bead  work.  There  was  also  a  looking-glass  that 
threw  me  into  hysterics,  for  I  had  not  seen  myself  for 
over  six  months.  I  walked  over  to  this  mirror,  and  the 
sight  of  myself  was  a  dreadful  and  painful  thing  to  be- 
hold. I  wept  and  laughed  in  turn.  It  did  not  seem  pos- 
sible that  I  could  ever  look  like  that.  So  far  as  I  could 
recall,  there  was  not  a  single  feature  of  my  old  self  left. 
My  face  was  covered  with  a  shaggy,  colorless  beard,  ex- 
cept at  two  spots  at  the  corners  of  my  mouth,  which  were 
entirely  bare.  I  looked  like  a  terrible  Siberian  convict. 
My  clothes,  too,  were  in  keeping  with  my  appearance — 
torn,  stained  and  all  out  of  shape.  My  heavy  hob-nailed 
shoes  were  much  worn  and  patched  in  places.  I  looked 
very  different,  indeed,  from  the  dandy  that  had  so  aston- 
ished the  Governor  of  Alaska  six  months  before.  The 
skin  of  my  face,  however,  wherever  visible  was  of  a 
milky  whitness  and  as  soft  as  that  of  a  baby.  This  was 
caused,  I  was  told,  from  so  long  bathing  in  snow  water. 


94 


BACK  TO  SEATTLE 

I  knew  that  I  had  to  improve  my  appearance  if  I  wished 
to  get  along  any  further  in  the  world  and  have  any  decent 
companions.  So  I  finally  succeeded  in  borrowing  a  razor, 
and  so  darned  and  cleaned  my  clothing  that  I  looked  very 
handsome  and  well  groomed  in  comparison. 

Now  commenced  the  wait  for  the  steamer  Dora,  which 
was  expected  in  about  ten  days.  As  has  been  inferred,  I 
had  not  sufficient  funds  to  pay  for  a  passage  to  Seattle. 
My  intention  was  to  go  aboard  when  the  steamer  arrived 
and  induce  the  purser  to  take  me  down  on  my  promise 
to  pay  at  Seattle.  I  expected  Edwards'  letter  to  assist 
me  in  this.  Failing— well,  I  had  no  plans,  only  I  was 
going  down  on  that  steamer  if  it  was  humanly  possible. 

Brooks  and  I  continued  to  live  at  the  cottage,  doing 
our  own  cooking.  Romeo  did  not  visit  me  at  all,  but  held 
himself  aloof,  and  seemed  to  have  attached  himself  to  the 
Krowleys,  whom  I  disliked.  This  rather  pained  me,  and 
I  have  never  understood  it.  The  days  were  very  long 
and  full  of  sunshine.  I  recall  sitting  outside  and  reading 
a  book  until  after  1 1  o'clock  at  night.  There  were  a  num- 
ber of  white  men  in  Yakutat  waiting  to  go  down  on  the 
Dora. 

Shortly  after  my  arrival,  a  Mr.  Wilcox  came  to  my 
"drawing  room"  and  introduced  himself  to  me.  Wilcox 
was  a  mining  engineer  and  investigator.  He  was  about 
fifty  years  of  age,  I  should  say,  and  was  from  Minnesota,: 
where  he  had  a  real  wife  and  family.  As  we  got  better 
acquainted  I  learned  that  he  represented  an  English  min- 
ing syndicate  and,  having  spent  his  entire  life  in  this 
business,  was  familiar  with  all  the  mining  districts  in 
America. 

95 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

Wilcox  was  of  the  old  school  of  mining  men,  a  school 
that  had  its  beginning  in  the  days  of  '49,  which  had  a 
very  different  soul  and  psychology  from  this  thing  that 
was  now  developing  in  Alaska.  His  was  the  open  man- 
ners of  the  Rockies,  while  that  of  these  people  in  this 
rush  was  that  of  the  city  tough  intermingled  with  agrarian 
provincialism. 

He  was  a  large  man,  self-educated  and  without  culture. 
He  was  a  revelation  to  me,  as  gentle  as  a  child  and  as 
rough  as  a  bull,  but  he  had,  as  I  found,  a  heart  of  gold. 
He  is  dead  now,  and  may  God  rest  his  big  soul. 

Wilcox  told  me  that  this  rush  to  Yakutat  had  caused 
considerable  excitement  below,  and  that  his  company  had 
insisted  upon  his  coming  here  and  seeing  what  it  was  all 
about.  He  had  got  in  on  the  first  trip  of  the  Dora 
going  north,  and  had  seen  at  a  glance  that  it  was  all  about 
nothing.  He  had  learned  that  the  whole  thing  had  been 
started  by  Pennick,  and  that  was  enough  for  him.  He 
had  known  of  Pennick  since  he  was  a  boy,  and  told  me  a 
great  deal  about  him  (Pennick)  and  his  career,  some  of 
which  has  been  used  in  this  narrative.  When  I  told  him 
of  the  Stinson  party  and  Pennick's  connection  therewith, 
he  was  immensely  interested,  and  we  became  fast  friends. 
He  came  to  my  "drawing  room"  every  day,  and  we  had 
many  long  chats  and  came  to  know  each  other  well. 

One  day  a  schooner  came  into  the  harbor  with  a  new 
party.  This  was  a  rather  large  party,  and  among  their 
possessions  were  two  horses.  As  there  was  no  place  to 
land  these  animals,  they  were  thrown  overboard  some  dis- 
tance out  in  the  bay  and  made  to  swim  ashore.  The 
beach  was  lined  with  the  usual  crowd  of  old  men,  squaws 

96 


BACK  TO  SEATTLE 

and  children,  who  ddight  in  sitting  out  on  sunny  days  to 
air  themselves,  wrapped  in  blankets.  When  these  horses 
came  up  on  the  beach,  there  was  a  panic,  the  like  of  which 
had  never  been  known  in  Yakutat  before,  for  none  of 
these  people  had  ever  seen  a  horse,  and  the  sight  of  the 
devil  himself  arising  from  the  water  could  not  have 
caused  greater  terror.  The  town  was  entirely  depopulated 
in  a  few  minutes ;  even  the  dogs  betook  themselves  to  the 
forest,  and  some  of  the  Mission  people  had  to  go  out  and 
gradually  coax  them  back. 

The  head  and  financial  backer  of  this  new  party  was 
a  man  whose  name  I  did  not  record,  and  for  this  I  am 
sorry,  for  he  enters  somewhat  into  this  relation.  I  am 
entirely  unable  to  recall  his  name,  though  I  saw  much  of 
him  for  a  while.  However,  if  someone  will  look  up  the 
Seattle  papers  for  the  latter  part  of  June,  1898,  his  name 
will  be  found  in  a  column  or  two  devoted  to  a  spectacular 
fight  he  had  with  Rennick  in  the  Seattle  Hotel  one  mid- 
night. 

This  Mr.  X — ,  as  we  will  call  him,  was  from  Duluth, 
and  was  said  to  be  a  prominent  business  man  there.  He 
had  been  president  of  the  Chamber  of  Commerce,  was 
about  forty  years  of  age,  and  had  with  him  as  friend  and 
assistant  a  Mr.  Hall. 

Wilcox  brought  him  up  to  my  "drawing  room"  and 
told  me  that  Rennick  had  swindled  him  out  of  about 
$75,000,  mostly  in  expenses,  I  presume.  After  my  dis- 
closures Mr.  X —  decided  to  send  the  schooner  back  and 
to  return  himself  on  the  Dora. 

A  few  days  before  the  Dora  arrived,  Wilcox  asked  me 
if  I  was  going  down  on  her.    I  told  him  I  was  if  I  could 

97 


AN   ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

do  SO,  but  that'  much  depended  on  the  purser,  as  I  had 
hardly  any  money  at  all.  His  answer  to  this  made  such 
an  impression  on  me  that  I  can  swear  to  his  exact  words 
to  this  day.  He  ran  his  hand  in  his  pocket  and,  drawing 
out  a  large  roll  of  bills,  said,  "Mr.  Gotten,  if  you  will  be 
so  kind  as  to  state  what  amount  of  money  you  require, 
I  will  be  delighted  to  let  you  have  it."  Here  was  gener- 
osity for  you,  and  faith,  too,  and  I  was,  of  course,  im- 
mensely pleased.  I  started  to  tell  him  that  he  knew  noth- 
ing whatever  about  me,  but  he  refused  to  listen,  and  said 
that  I  had  inspired  a  confidence  in  him  which  he  hoped  he 
would  have  inspired  in  me  had  our  situations  been  re- 
versed. That  if  he  lost  a  hundred  or  so  by  me,  he  would 
not  mention  it  to  a  soul,  and  that  it  did  not  in  the  least 
matter,  anyway. 

I  finally  told  him  that  if  he  would  pay  my  fare  and 
expenses  down  to  Seattle,  it  would  indeed  relieve  me 
of  much  embarrassment,  and  that  I  was  in  position  to 
repay  him  upon  arrival.  This  was  indeed  a  fine  thing  for 
Wilcox  to  do,  for  I  looked  a  tramp,  and  he  knew  nothing 
whatever  of  me. 

In  the  meantime.  Brooks  had  found  a  friend  from 
"back  in  Missouri,"  and  had  been  taken  off  my  hands; 
Romeo  and  the  Krowleys  also  managed  to  get  in  the  steer- 
age of  the  Dora  when  she  arrived.  Romeo  seemed  to  be 
awfully  peeved  about  something,  and  I  only  saw  him  once 
on  the  boat.  Brooks  thought  that  Romeo  was  displeased 
because  I  had  not  secured  him  in  the  good  graces  of  Wil- 
cox. This,  however,  I  could  not  do,  because  Wilcox  sim- 
ply would  have  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  either  Brooks 
or  Romeo. 

98 


BACK  TO  SEATTLE 

Wilcox  wanted  to  visit  Juneau  on  business,  and  in- 
sisted upon  my  stopping-  over  with  him.  This  I  could 
not  very  well  refuse  under  the  circumstances,  though  I 
wanted  so  much  to  hurry  south  and  enter  the  army.  So 
we  left  the  Dora  at  Sitka  and  awaited  an  opportunity  to 
get  over  to  Juneau. 

After  leaving  Yakutat  Wilcox  really  looked  after  me 
like  a  father.  He  began  to  call  me  lad,  and  came  near 
throwing  a  rather  neatly  dressed  man  overboard  because 
he  left  his  seat  that  was  next  to  mine  at  the  table.  Wil- 
cox thought  he  did  this  on  account  of  my  rough  appear- 
ance, which  was  probably  true,  and,  though  I  must  say 
I  could  hardly  blame  him  myself,  Wilcox  thought  other- 
wise, and  gave  him  a  call  down  the  like  of  which  I  have 
never  heard  in  my  lifetime. 

This  man  was  badly  frightened,  and  was  not  seen  on 
deck  again.  His  "biled  shirt"  was  too  immaculate  and  his 
collar  too  high,  besides  he  had  a  sweet  tenor  voice,  a  com- 
bination entirely  fatal  to  fellowship  in  this  land  of 
Chanooke.  Wilcox  would  also  come  around  every  day  or 
two  and  push  a  ten  or  twenty  dollar  bill  in  my  pocket. 
Of  these  he  kept  no  account  whatever,  and  when  we  got 
to  Seattle  and  he  finally  rendered  a  bill,  I  already  had 
more  than  enough  of  his  own  money  in  my  pocket  to  pay 
him  with. 

This  caused  some  argument,  and  we  finally  settled  by 
my  turning  over  to  him  all  the  money  I  had  in  my  pocket 
upon  arrival,  plus  the  fare  and  other  expenses  that  could 
be  remembered. 

We  remained  in  Sitka  several  days.  When  we  went  up 
to  our  room  at  the  hotel  that  night,  the  Indian  porter  told 


99 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

US  with  pride  that  Madame  Sarah  Bernhardt  had  recently 
occupied  that  same  room,  but  what  interested  me  most 
was  real  beds,  such  as  I  had  not  seen  for  six  months.  Mine 
had  sheets  on  it,  and  they  tickled  me  so  that  I  could  not 
sleep  for  a  long  time.  Here  we  heard  of  Dewey's  victory 
over  the  Spaniards  in  Manila  Bay.  No  one  knew  at  all 
where  Manila  was,  and  a  fierce  argument  went  on  at 
the  hotel  for  several  days.  Finally  someone  discovered  a 
map,  which  showed  Manila  to  be  in  the  Spice  Islands. 
After  a  few  days  a  yacht  belonging  to  the  Alaska  Pack- 
ers' Association  came  in  and  offered  to  take  us  over  to 
Juneau.  It  was  a  beautiful  trip  of  one  day,  through  the 
islands  and  across  the  entrance  of  Glacier  Bay.  Juneau 
is  a  wonderful  spot.  Across  the  narrow  strait  on  Douglas 
Island  is  Douglas  City,  where  are  situated  the  Tredwell 
mines,  the  largest  stamp  milling  property  in  the  world. 

At  Juneau  we  had  quite  an  interesting  experience,  for 
in  the  hotel  here  were  stopping  both  "Nigger  Jim"  and 
"Swift  Water  Bill"  Gates.  These  were  very  prominent 
Klondike  millionaires,  and  until  quite  recently  had  been 
just  ordinary  tramps.  They  were  each  occupying  entire 
floors  at  the  hotel  and  were  accompanied  by  numerous 
retainers,  including  a  number  of  girls  from  the  under- 
world. 

"Nigger  Jim"  was  a  common  white  man  from  Lou- 
isiana, who  had  acquired  his  name  from  the  fact  that  he 
spoke  like  a  negro.  He  had  taken  out,  it  is  said,  about 
$800,000  from  the  Klondike  section,  and  was  now  at  the 
height  of  his  glory.  This  fortune  was  entirely  squandered 
in  about  two  years,  and  in  1904  he  was  pointed  out  to  me 
in  Skagway,  where  he  was  working  as  a  common  laborer 
at  $2.50  a  day. 

100 


BACK  TO  SEATTLE 

"Swift  Water  Bill"  Gates  was  more  presentable  than 
"Nigger  Jim."  He  was  said  to  have  possessed  more 
than  a  million,  which  he  likewise  entirely  squandered  in 
a  year  or  two,  during  which  process  he  married  three 
sisters  in  rapid  succession. 

They  were  both  unique  and  widely  known  characters 
as  long  as  their  money  lasted,  and  the  whole  of  Juneau 
felt  their  presence  on  this  occasion.  It  was  a  noisy, 
drunken  and  riotous  time,  and  I  remember  coming  in  one 
evening,  when  the  crowd  had  got  too  drunk  to  be  noisy, 
and  found  "Nigger  Jim"  and  "Swift  Water"  quietly 
sitting  at  a  table  drinking  champagne  out  of  the  bottle 
and  cutting  the  cards  for  $5,000  a  cut. 

These  notables  were  being  held  here  on  account  of  the 
situation  in  Skagway,  where  a  famous  gambler,  "Sopey" 
Smith,  had  seized  control  of  things  and  was  openly  rob- 
bing everybody  that  came  through  the  town.  "Sopey" 
had  himself  elected  Mayor  of  the  town,  and  immediately 
inaugurated  a  reign  of  terror.  This  lasted  for  about  six 
weeks,  during  which  time  fully  fifty  people  were  mur- 
dered in  cold  blood.  "Sopey"  himself  was  finally  killed, 
but  succeeded  in  killing  at  the  same  time  his  adversary, 
and  they  are  both  buried  in  Skagway,  side  by  side. 

Upon  the  arrival  of  the  City  of  Seattle,  we  proceeded 
down  through  the  wondrous  inside  passage  into  Puget 
Sound,  and  arrived  at  Seattle  on  the  14th  of  June.  There 
were  a  number  of  miners  and  gamblers  aboard,  and  some 
of  the  atmosphere  of  "Swift  Water  Bill"  lingered  with 
us  still.  The  captain  kept  a  roster  of  the  boys  who  should 
answer  bells  and  wait  on  the  poker  parties  that  were  go- 
ing on,  and  it  was  said  that  the  tips  received  by  some  of 


lOI 


AN   ADVENTURE  IN   ALASKA 

these  boys  on  a  single  trip  often  exceeded  the  captain's 
pay  for  a  month. 

On  the  way  down  I  saw  in  a  paper  that  my  brother, 
Lyman  Gotten,  had  graduated  from  the  United  States 
Naval  Academy  and  had  been  assigned  to  the  U.  S.  S. 
Columbia,  thereby  starting  a  career  that  has  been  brilliant 
and  most  creditable  to  himself  and  to  the  family  as  well. 

My  first  day  in  Seattle  was  spent  shopping  and  in  a 
barber  shop,  where  I  got  a  shave,  haircut,  singe,  sham- 
poo, massage  and  manicure.  When  I  appeared  for  din- 
ner that  night  Wilcox  was  most  enthusiastic  over  my  ap- 
pearance. He  had  never  seen  me  in  a  "biled"  shirt,  and 
hardly  knew  me.  That  evening  we  went  to  a  theatre. 
Next  to  me  sat  a  gentleman,  alone,  with  whom  I  began 
to  converse.  It  proved  to  be  Mr.  Colton,  and  I  delivered 
Hearndon's  message  upon  the  first  evening  I  arrived, 
which  was  most  fortunate,  for  he  was  leaving  in  two 
days  for  Yakutat. 

We  both  thought  this  a  queer  coincidence.  He  came  to 
see  me  the  next  morning  and  we  started  to  church.  On 
the  way  we  met  Dr.  Shelton  Jackson.  Mr.  Colton  knew 
Dr.  Jackson,  and  introduced  me  to  him  and  we  all  went  to 
church  together.  Dr.  Jackson  was  at  that  time  regarded 
the  best  living  authority  on  everything  pertaining  to 
Alaska. 

I  again  went  to  the  Globe  Hotel  and  quickly  got  in 
contact  with  what  friends  I  had  in  Seattle.  All  received 
me  warmly  and  were  much  interested  in  this  story.  I 
began  to  study  the  war  and  to  make  plans  to  enter  the 
army  at  once.  Wilcox  did  not  approve  of  this  entirely, 
and  offered  me  a  place  in  some  works  of  his  in  Idaho,  but 


1 02 


BACK  TO  SEATTLE 

I  felt  the  call  of  the  soldier,  and  Wilcox  finally  said  good- 
bye with  a  big  bear  hug,  and  I  never  saw  him  again, 
though  I  have  thought  of  him  often  and  his  great  kind- 
ness to  me.     I  shall  never  see  his  like  again. 

Only  one  other  thing  need  be  recorded  here.  Very 
early  one  morning,  before  anyone  was  up,  there  came  a 
knock  on  my  door  and  a  whisper,  "Open  the  door,  Cot- 
ten  ;  it  is  Rennick."  I  opened  the  door,  and  it  was  Ren- 
nick  indeed.  Not  the  Rennick  that  I  knew,  with  blue 
shirt  and  mackinaw,  but  Rennick,  the  immaculate,  if  you 
please.  Rennick  with  whiskers  nicely  trimmed,  tailored 
suit,  gloves  and  walking  cane.  He  came  in  and  I  locked 
the  door  behind  him  and  stood  against  it.  Many  people 
in  Seattle  were  looking  for  Rennick.  Mr.  X — ,  at  the 
Seattle  Hotel,  was  most  anxious  to  find  him.  In  every 
hotel  in  Seattle  there  were  people  looking  for  Rennick, 
and  here  he  was  in  my  room  at  sunrise. 

I  was  so  surprised  that  I  could  make  no  decision  as  to 
how  I  ought  to  act,  and  ended  in  making  a  mess  of  the 
opportunity  I  had.  He  asked  me  why  I  had  left  the 
party,  and  said  I  had  ruined  him  by  coming  back  and 
spreading  all  those  reports.  I  stopped  him  and  began 
talking  in  a  rough  and  threatening  way.  Rennick  was 
alarmed  and  thought  that  I  was  going  to  do  him  bodily 
harm,  for  he  was  physically  a  great  coward.  He  began 
to  beg  piteously.  He  insisted  that  he  had  been  robbed 
by  Pennick  and  betrayed  by  that  beast  of  a  George,  and 
put  up  a  most  pathetic  tale.  I  again  began  to  feel  the 
effect  of  this  man's  personality,  which  was  most  curious 
and  hypnotic  in  some  way. 

I  began  to  weaken  and  then  let  him  go  entirely,  feeling 


103 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

rather  sorry  for  him.  I  almost  immediately  repented.  I 
should  have  listened  to  what  he  had  to  say,  learned  his 
plans  and  then  acted.  As  it  was,  I  do  not  know  to  this 
day  why  he  came  to  my  room  at  sunrise,  but  I  am  sure 
he  had  something  very  interesting  up  his  sleeve. 

I  dressed  hurriedly  and  went  to  Wilcox  and  got  him 
out  of  bed.  Wilcox  said  I  had  behaved  like  a  ten-year- 
old,  but  told  me  to  hurry  to  the  room  of  Mr.  X —  and 
inform  him  that  Rennick  was  in  town.  Mr.  X — 
and  Hall  were  much  excited  and  immediately  began  a 
search  of  the  town.  But  no  Rennick  was  found.  Mr. 
Rennick  was  a  most  difficult  man  to  find ;  he  kept  rooms 
in  many  hotels  in  many  places,  and  had  spies  at  them  all, 
usually  some  of  the  desk  clerks,  and  they  covered  him 
up  and  lied  for  him  splendidly. 

Mr.  X — ,  however,  persevered  in  his  search,  and 
finally  ascertained  that  Rennick  would  most  likely  be 
found  in  Portland.  He  detailed  Mr.  Hall,  who  was 
unknown  to  Rennick,  to  undertake  the  search  and  to  ar- 
range to  bring  Mr.  X —  and  Rennick  together. 

Mr.  X — 's  sole  object  in  this  was  to  adminster  to 
Rennick  a  sound  thrashing,  and  he  vowed  that  he  would 
never  be  happy  again  until  he  had  in  person  administered 
such  punishment.  "A  little  piece  of  his  hide."  as  he 
expressed  it,  would  to  some  extent  atone  for  the  injury 
done  and  console  him  in  his  declining  years  for  having 
been  such  a  fool  in  his  younger  days. 

Accordingly,  Hall  was  dispatched  to  Portland,  where 
he  shortly  located  Rennick  in  one  of  the  smaller  hotels. 
He  took  a  room  at  this  hotel  and  let  it  be  known  that 
he  was  from  the  Middle  East;  that  he  had  sold  out  his 


104 


BACK  TO  SEATTLE 

business  and  wanted  to  go  to  Alaska.  He  even  showed 
the  head  clerk  a  large  roll  of  hundred-dollar  bills,  and 
said  he  would  invest  in  something  in  Alaska,  provided  it 
was  something  sufficiently  promising  and  sure. 

Rennick,  of  course,  had  nothing  but  "sure  things"  to 
offer,  and  the  presence  of  easy  money  in  the  lobby  soon 
brought  him  from  his  seclusion.  Hall  was  advised  by  one 
of  Rennick's  spies  to  see  Mr.  Rennick,  who  was  described 
as  a  wealthy  and  successful  miner  and  the  owner  of  valu- 
able properties  in  Alaska. 

It  was  insinuated  that  Rennick  was  a  great  personal 
friend  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  and  could  do 
things  in  Alaska  forbidden  to  the  less  favored. 

Hall  appeared  interested,  and  asked  to  see  Mr,  Ren- 
nick. Mr.  Rennick  was  very  busy,  as  usual,  but  after 
some  delay  gave  him  an  appointment.  Hall  stated  his 
situation ;  said  that  he  had  sold  out  his  packing  business 
in  Quincey;  that  the  Trust  had  driven  him  out,  and  that 
he  never  expected  to  go  East  again, 

Rennick  was  very  abusive  of  the  Trust,  Hall  said,  and 
after  a  while,  seeing  that  he  was  a  deserving  man,  offered 
to  sell  him  certain  interests  in  mining  property  located 
near  Yakutat.  Rennick  said  that  he  had  been  developing 
this  district  secretly  for  some  years,  but  that  the  thing 
was  out  now  and  that  the  entire  section  ought  to  be  lo- 
cated as  quickly  as  possible,  before  Congress  changed 
the  laws  and  put  a  stop  to  the  whole  thing.  He  showed 
Hall  a  pile  of  blueprints,  and  told  him  of  a  number  of 
people  who  were  in  there,  mentioning  by  name  among 
others  Mr.  X — ,  who,  he  said,  would  certainly  make  a 
million. 

105 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  ALASKA 

Hall,  as  can  be  understood,  was  very  much  interested  in 
this  prospect,  and  deeply  impressed  with  the  opportunity. 
After  some  further  negotiations,  he  told  Rennick  that  he 
had  but  $5,000,  but  that  a  friend  of  his  named  Adams 
had  come  west  with  him  for  exactly  the  same  purpose 
as  himself;  that  Adams  had  about  $10,000,  but  had  gone 
to  Seattle.  He  so  much  desired  to  bring  Mr.  Rennick 
and  Adams  together,  and  himself  wanted  to  go  in  with 
Adams  on  this  proposition. 

Hall  then  tried  (?)  to  get  Adams  to  come  down  to 
Portland,  but  Adams  would  not  come,  and  Hall  showed 
Rennick  his  letter,  which  looked  so  promising  that  Ren- 
nick finally  consented  to  run  over  to  Seattle,  though  he 
was  so  busy  he  could  only  spend  a  couple  of  hours  there. 

Hall  and  Rennick  arrived  in  Seattle  at  midnight,  and 
Mr.  Adams  (X — )  was  waiting  to  receive  them  in  his 
room  at  the  Seattle  Hotel  on  Yestler  Way. 

Mr.  Hall  took  Rennick  to  Mr.  X — 's  room  and  locked 
the  door  behind  him.  Mr.  X —  then  stepped  from  be- 
hind a  screen  and  with  his  bare  fists  began  to  extract 
that  "bit  of  hide"  that  he  so  ardently  craved.  In  a  few 
seconds  Rennick  lay  sprawling  on  the  floor,  yelling  and 
screaming  with  all  his  might.  Mr.  X —  continued  to 
administer  his  punishment,  until  suddenly  he  realized 
that  the  entire  hotel  was  in  an  uproar  and  panic.  Some- 
one had  turned  in  a  fire  alarm,  half-clad  men  and  women 
were  rushing  through  the  halls,  boxes  and  trunks  were 
being  tumbled  around,  children  crying  and  the  ofiice  force 
rushing  about  trying  to  locate  the  trouble. 

Mr.  X —  opened  the  door  and  he  and  Hall  went  out 
and   tried   to   calm   things   down  by   explaining  to   the 

106 


BACK  TO  SEATTLE 

ladies  and  apologizing  for  what  had  occurred.  It  was 
some  time  before  quiet  was  restored,  during  which  time 
Rennick  vanished,  leaving  on  the  floor  a  very  pretty  little 
gold  nugget,  which  had  rolled  out  of  his  pocket  during 
the  melee.  This  Mr.  X —  secured  and  valued  very  much 
as  a  souvenir  of  his  experiences. 

Shortly  after  this  a  plain  man  came  down  from  Yaku- 
tat,  one  of  the  many  such  that  had  been  ruined  by  Ren- 
nick's  extraordinary  cunning  and  cruel  dishonesty.  He 
sought  Rennick,  too,  quietly,  himself  and  alone.  He 
found  him,  and  his  bullet  found  its  mark.  I  should  say 
that  if  Rennick  could  have  talked  to  that  man  for  one 
minute  and  looked  him  in  the  eye,  he  would  not  have  shot 
him. 

Now  I  have  come  to  the  end  of  this  narrative.  It  is  a 
true  story,  and  a  curious  tale  for  one  like  me.  I  have 
often  examined  myself  in  an  effort  to  discover  if  any  evil 
remained  therefrom,  if  any  mud  had  stuck  to  my  character 
in  the  passing.  I  think  not.  I  learned  much  of  the 
world,  and  saw  much  that  was  not  beautiful  in  man,  but 
it  did  not  affect  me  badly.  Though  I  met  George,  I  also 
met  Wilcox,  and  I  took  more  of  Wilcox  than  I  did  of 
George,  and  went  on  in  my  way  to  other  things,  and  am 
not  sorry. 

[finis.] 


107 


UNIVERSITY  OF  N.C.  AT  CHAPEL  HILL 


00032195614 

FOR  USE  ONLY  IN 
THE  NORTH  CAROLINA  COLLECTION 


